‘I’m a critical friend’: Cephas Williams’s plan to improve Black representation at Cannes

“I found myself saying that I didn’t want to go out to Cannes and speak if it’s just going to be me speaking to the same audience, about the same thing,” Williams tells The Drum. “There’s a space for your voice, the ability to articulate and communicate what you feel and what you want to do, that’s of great value and importance. But the key component to change is not just vocalizing the change you want to see, the key component to change is doing it.”

So, he put up £20k of his own money, alongside donations, to take three Black creatives to France with him. This year, he hopes to take 50 people. But, to make this happen, he needed the backing of Cannes Lions, brands and agencies.

Who is Cephas Williams?

Cephas Williams has many strings to his bow. After gaining an architecture degree, he was inspired to launch Drummer Boy Studios in 2017, which serves as a community creative hub. Since then he has gone on to launch the 56 Black Men visual project and develop the Black British Network (BBN) to challenge the negative portrayal of Black people in the media.

He describes his connection to adland as “distant” at best and “tokenistic” at worst. “Someone once described me as a critical friend of the industry,” he says.

It was the ‘56 Black Men’ project he led that shone a spotlight on the power of advertising and media. The campaign put Black men at the forefront of their own conversation, challenging the stereotypes and focusing on achievements rather than negatives. The number 56 was taken from a Sky report that detailed the staggering amount of Black people murdered in the UK in 2018.

“I’ve become closer to the industry in recent years. Someone senior in the ad industry in 2019 once said that project was the biggest campaign to come out of the UK that year.” He recalls being told that another person questioned that statement, before saying it was the John Lewis Christmas ad. The industry exec went on to say that Williams didn’t have the same financial backing as the retailer and still had a global impact. “Imagine if I had been supported,” says Williams.

“You’re talking about the power of media. One of the intrinsic, unwavering power of the media is the exchange between your thought process and your action.” Williams states that everyone knows systemic racism is wrong but sometimes our conscious wants to protect us and pretend it doesn’t exist. “The power of media in proximity to George Floyd meant that overnight billions of people were able to act because of a thought process that has existed for decades. But it wasn’t until the media got involved and everyone saw the same message the same way, that we had some kind of speed and pace. You can imagine if 56 Black men had that machine behind it, it could have touched billions.”

The Cannes-agenda

Through his newfound relationship with the advertising industry, Williams has voiced concerns about the “pace of change” in the industry. “Cannes is the epicenter of a whole industry almost, it has the potential to speed up anything you place within the ecosystem,” he says.

Ascential Events, the company that operates Cannes, is signed up to the Black British Network as a founding member. Phillip Thomas is the chairman, someone who Williams has spoken to over the years about the festival. After George Floyd was murdered, Thomas engaged Williams in a conversation about how it could improve. After the Black Lives Matter movement and the Covid-19 pandemic, Williams expected to go out to Cannes to see a marked difference in its commitment to improving diversity but admits it wasn’t “front and center” as he anticipated.

“Clearly, last year I didn’t feel they were doing enough,” he says.

His response was to invest his own money to take a handful of young talent out there. He opened the program up for applications. Among the applicants were two people from Salesforce. “Team members, executives, within [the company’s] vertical that were going.

“So I contacted Salesforce, a founding member of the BBN, and said two people from your company applied, they have good applications and I’d like to involve them.”

The software company then got behind it the initiative, giving Williams some much-needed financial backing. In the end, he raised over £62,000.

This year, Williams will be taking 50 Black creatives over to Cannes and Ascential has gotten behind his initiative.

“We’re taking it to another level,” he says. Alongside Cannes Lions Chief executive officer Simon Cook, Williams will launch Black Out 2023 this year in the hopes of driving greater representation at the event. The project will give Black talent the authentic proximity they need to develop personally and within the industry, building relationships with people, brands, marketing leaders and be among the media giants.

But the backing of Cannes doesn’t mean Williams won’t stop prodding for continued change.

“I don’t say things to agitate, I say the truth. I talk about my vision and the truth of the situation if that agitates someone then that’s not my responsibility at that point. Only Cannes can tell you if they are doing enough. The bigger question is: are we there?”

Nowhere close, he says, which begs the question, what could Cannes and other companies be doing more of? It’s a conversation Williams will have within the safety of their relationship.

“It’s interesting, Facebook was signed up to the BBN when all of the racism was going happening on social media and there’s a couple of people that said boycott Facebook.”

This came from white leaders, who called Williams to ask if he wanted to lead them in boycotting the platform. “Because I’d engaged Facebook as part of the BBN, and the BBN is positioned to bring everyone around the table, doesn’t mean we’re not going to say what’s real.

“But the power of that proximity and ecosystem is that we are doing this together.” He adds that the moment he feels Cannes isn’t doing enough or does something he doesn’t feel is right, because of the relationship he has with them, he will make it known.

The backing of brands

It’s not just Cannes though, Williams wants to engage with companies that support his campaign.

Currently, his Crowdfunder for 2023’s Cannes delegation is at £42k. Yahoo has confirmed that it will be putting money down, as well as working with Williams while in Cannes this year.

“I really want to see engagement from Meta and Google.” The two giants have some of the biggest presence at Cannes and Williams would like to see a coordinated effort that brings people together in an aligned way.

“Oliver Agency got behind us last year, Dentsu Creative, Lucky Generals, BBH, Tesco, McCann, Salesforce, IPG, WPP, Britvic, Havas Group, Omnicomm, BT, Wunderman Thompson, M&C Saatchi, Mullen Lowe, Amplify. There’s a load of companies here and brands. How do we get them in the space to get behind what we’re doing?

“It's about the economic advancement of the Black community, dismantling systemic racism and creating an equal playing field for Black people. If I go back to that beach in 20 or 30 years’ time, I want to be able to stand in some of the manifestations of that vision.”