 Welcome back to Semafor’s annual exclusive coverage of Cannes, which will mix utility — see our calendar below, and our Cannes crime report (!) — with interviews and insight. But we thought we should begin by noting a political environment nobody wants to talk about. As I wrote in Semafor Media this week, the ad biz has always been uniquely vulnerable to extortion. The dynamic between agencies and brands, and everyone’s fear of C-suite embarrassment, produces a dynamic in which you rarely get the kind of public outcry that’s common in other media industries. But even if marketers don’t stage the public political confrontations you see in journalism (and, to a degree, entertainment), advertising remains a major front in Trump’s media war. The Wall Street Journal’s Suzanne Vranica reported in February that IPG signed a deal with X in the hopes of getting its Omnicom merger through. X is reportedly rebuilding its business with a campaign of politically charged legal threats against advertisers. The US Federal Trade Commission is now focused on killing off “brand safety” guidelines it sees as targeting right-wing views. Marketing executives I talked to in the run-up to Cannes were too scared to talk about this pressure in public. “Brands would rather spend on advertising at a low return rate on X, versus spending that money on lawyers,” one agency exec noted. You won’t see any panels on this subject on the beach, but that doesn’t mean Trump isn’t casting a shadow over the Riviera. Also today: Listings, warnings, and advice on how to navigate this week’s mayhem. And spread the word — forward this to someone who needs to stay in the loop on all things Cannes. They can sign up here to get daily dispatches. | 
