Campaigning with Pride

By Mark Tungate

June is Pride Month and celebrations are taking place around the world – even in countries where discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community is rife. Let’s look at some campaigns full of Pride.

To start things off, here’s a terrific film from the French agency Babel. The song is in French too, but there’s no dialogue and the message traverses global borders. You may shed a tear at the end.

You can tell times are changing when the NFL in the US simply states: “Football is gay.” This is what happened next – with the help of 72andSunny.

Brands have latched on to Pride in a big way. This digital campaign from H&M and B-Reel in Stockholm endeavours to go further, telling stories behind the rainbow flag.

As the previous film suggests, in the past many brands avoided being associated with the gay community. Now the opposite is often true: here’s Ford pushing back against hate speech on its site with humour and panache. Rarely has a pick-up truck looked so flamboyant. 

An online tool from Rethink in Canada, launched during Pride Month in 2021, replaced hate speech with the rainbow flag.

But this year Rethink is behind an even more poignant campaign, with an idea that’s as impactful as it is painful to watch.

To shake things up a bit, here’s a campaign that isn’t digital at all – in fact, it’s print. Havas New York and the Ali Forney Center found a smart way of using New Yorker magazine to show that 40% of the city’s homeless community identify as LGBTQ+.

“Family is the new rock’n’roll,” suggests the next case. Because for this community, starting a family feels like the most subversive thing to do.

It would be remiss of us not to include one of last year’s most inclusive campaigns, from Mastercard and McCann New York: “True Name”. It’s not often that you see work that truly moves society forward.

Let’s also show some love for another award-winning campaign, this time from Turkey, where the rainbow flag is banned.

Finally, here’s an upbeat film from Gut in Brazil for the e-commerce brand Mercado Livre. Kiss prejudice goodbye.