Tag: LGBTQIA+

Hong Kong – Virtual insurer OneDegree has launched its newest campaign for Pride Month, celebrating the diversity across the community as part of their endeavour to launch its home insurance offering to extend coverages to diverse families.

Conceptualised alongside Giraffe Hong Kong and distributed alongside Carat, is a deep-dived, unscripted 2min and 25sec interview video that featured 10 LGBTQ+ couples, including celebrity Kayla Wong and her fiancée Elaine Chen-Fernandez, where they expressed thoughts around their definition of ‘home’, a definition that might differ by person but in fact universal by nature.

OneDegree identifies the market gap and the need for inclusiveness for a diverse community, in addition to consumers’ need for a more personalised, nimble and most-valued-for-money insurance coverage. Therefore, its new home insurance package can be personally tailored and extends from the basic coverage for household contents.

Speaking on the campaign launch, Alvin Kwock, co-founder of OneDegree Group, said, “OneDegree believes all families are worth protecting and should share equal rights in the society. We believe that insurance is not only a written insurance on paper, but a promise that we give to protect all families out there.”

Meanwhile, Sean Lee, creative partner at Giraffe Hong Kong, commented, “To share a dream home with your beloved one should be something you deserve for, but not something you have to fight for. This is why we came up with the idea of simply asking all the couples ‘What is home?’, to show that LGBTQ+ and straight families are just the same. We share the same needs, thus deserve the same protection.”

Lastly, Polly Ip, business director at Carat Media Services Hong Kong, said, “We have two target segments identified, LGBTQ+ community and the Mass Audience. To accurately capture the right audiences, we leveraged multiple programmatic partners riding on vertical 3rd party data, contextual intelligence to reach out to LGBTQ+ community with combing audience and sentiment segments in real time. With advanced predictive cookieless solution, we are able to identify high value and discover new trending contents that resonates with our target audience to ensure campaign relevancy and drive on-target reach. This differed us from other typical insurance product campaigns.”

Billund, Denmark — The LEGO Group has announced its launch of the ‘A-Z of Awesome’, an ongoing campaign which runs into 2023 using LEGO builds to celebrate inclusivity and embrace self-expression in the LGBTQIA+ community.

The A-Z will be developed in creative LEGO creations to help LGBTQIA+ families use play to have open conversations about their identities. For the alphabet to be created in the most authentic and meaningful way possible, the designs of each letter will be created by members of the LGBTQIA+ community, including LEGO fans, young and old, members of the community and LEGO employees.

Launching during Pride Month, the alphabet aims to build understanding and acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community and the different abbreviations used.

‘The A-Z of Awesome’ aims to present the community’s vocabulary more widely through a fun and playful medium. The LEGO Group is inviting submissions including an explanation of what the build means to its creator, which will be featured on a dedicated website.

Alero Akuya, VP of brand development of LEGO Group, said, “The wonderful thing about LEGO bricks is that they can be a powerful form of self-expression as you can build anything you can imagine. We can’t wait to see what fans will submit of amazing builds and beautiful stories.”

Akuya adds, “We hope their creativity and our A-Z of Awesome campaign inspire people of all ages and help build greater awareness and acceptance. We want to show people that with more love and understanding people can be their true selves.”

The creative inspiration for this campaign was born out of the insight from GLAAD that almost half of non-LGBTQIA+ people find conversations around gender identity confusion.

On the significance of Pride Month, Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, executive director of GLSEN, said, “All children benefit from learning about the diverse world around them, and positive representation of LGBTQ+ identities, whether in school curriculum or in play, helps young people feel prepared to meaningfully engage in their communities. We’re proud to support the LEGO Group’s ‘The A-Z of Awesome’ campaign as a powerful tool to build a more tolerant and inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ families and young people.”

Meanwhile, Intersex campaigner and ‘A-Z of Awesome’ contributor Pidgeon Pagonis, shared, “Growing up I remember feeling this sense of shame, like oh there’s something wrong with me, or the things I desire or want. This project is important because there might be an intersex person out there who likes to build with LEGO bricks, and this can help them see themselves represented.”

The 2022 campaign for Pride month brings together the following; The A-Z campaign will serve as a call to action for members of the community to submit their builds and stories to complete the alphabet. Selected builds will be added to the A-Z, with the full alphabet being presented by the end of 2022. Additionally, The LEGO Group will donate US$1m to existing and new partner organisations in support of the LGBTQIA community.

Moreover, LEGO will participate in pride events as well as have their LBGTQIA+ Employee Advocacy Groups arrange activities for LEGO employees, as well as internal sessions will be hosted featuring external consultants from the community.

This campaign builds off the LEGO Group’s support for the LGBTQIA+ community in recent years where one such example includes supporting the LGBTQIA+ community by building a miniature pride parade within the family activity zone at Pride in London in 2019.

Australia — A national survey has been launched by The Body Shop Australia and Australia-based LGBTQIA+ youth advocate Minus18 to highlight the young queer people and their allies’ plight for inclusion.

The survey aims to boost the voices of young LGBTQIA+ people who too often are sidelined from conversations and decisions that directly impact their lives. It will underscore issues they face today, ranging from support their school or workplace gives, to sex education, gender-affirming surgery, safe spaces, and thoughts on the efforts of Australian leaders to support their community.

Simultaneously, full-service earned media agency One Green Bean (OGB) is driving awareness of the survey and donation from highlighter sales through media outreach and an influencer program across Instagram and TikTok. Influencers including @stylebydeni, @kathebbs, @alrighthey and @seanszeps will share posts encouraging their followers to take part in the survey.

The survey is open until March 15, 2022. The results will inform future Minus18 campaigns and events and will be published in a report later this year to further amplify the voices of these young people. Interested individuals can participate in the campaign through the campaign’s designated website (start.yougov.com/refer/vVsz4FfjtLBT70).

Meanwhile, an integrated campaign by Havas Village, ‘Out for Love’, is highlighting the work of the said survey. The campaign’s strategic media planning and buying will go through Havas Media Melbourne. In addition, its media outreach and influencer activities will be done via OGB.

Havas Media Melbourne has engaged entertainment website Pedestrian TV as part of a media campaign to help pass the mic to LGBTQIA+ youth communities. The campaign has also been integrated into episodes 3 and 8 of the 10-part TikTok series entitled ‘Self Care’, produced by production company Slag Productions in partnership with The Body Shop and a leading influencer.

Simone Gupta, CEO of Havas PR Australia responsible for One Green Bean, Red Havas, and Organic Pacific, said, “OGB is proud to be working on this important campaign with The Body Shop and Minus18, we’re getting the word out to drive participation in what we want to be the biggest ever survey of the LGBTQIA+ community and allies in Australia, assembling a team of influencers and executing a product-led media strategy to spread the word.”

Naomi Johnston, general manager of Havas Media Melbourne, shared the work aligned with Havas Village values, further saying, “The Havas Group is a strong supporter of diversity and inclusion. It is a privilege to be able to apply that commitment to the ‘Out for Love’ campaign by driving media activity that speaks directly to young LGBTQIA+ communities and their allies.”

Meanwhile, Shannon Chrisp, APAC brand and activism director of The Body Shop Australia, commented that The Body Shop is a brand rooted in activism and a proud ally of the LGBTQIA+ community.

“LGBTQIA+ Australians are too often excluded from the conversations that most affect them, so we are very proud to be working with Minus18 on this important campaign to amplify the community and allies’ voices, and support the next generation of queer leaders,” Chrisp said.

Last December, The Body Shop and Havas Village also collaborated to launch a Christmas campaign entitled ‘Spread the Love, Share the Joy This Christmas.’

India – To celebrate this year’s ‘National Coming Out Day’, which is commemorated every 11th October for the awareness of the LGBTQIA+ community, MTV Beats, India’s music-only channel, has partnered with digital agency RepIndia to release a video that seeks to bolster the movement towards acceptance, inclusivity, and uniqueness.

The ongoing conversation and support have achieved the acceptance for the LGBTQIA+ community by leaps and bounds, but just like any fight against discrimination in society, there is always so much more one can do in order to truly give the minority the respect and belonging they deserve.

The video boasts a highly artistic hand with engaging graphics that are representative of the rainbow symbol of the community. Within the video is a poem that uses metaphors to convey that we are all different in our own ways, but that it isn’t something that should cause a divide among us.

“Some like lines, others like curves,” one of the lines said.

The agency shared that the video is built on the insight that love is natural and comes from within.

“Yet, we judge those who choose to live differently than us. Simply because we aren’t able to comprehend it. ‘Coming Out’ takes a lot of courage and we must never dissuade a person for whom they choose to love,” RepIndia said in a press statement. 

MTV Beats as a brand has been a strong ally of the community. Last year, it released ‘Love Duet’, India’s first ‘Love’ album by the LGBTQIA+ community, which aimed to normalize the conversations on love which go beyond the stereotypes of gender.

The video has been released across the brand’s social media including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Sydney, Australia – Few days left for the observance of Pride Month this June, yet new data from LGBTQIA+ media advocacy organization GLAAD and visual communications company Getty Images shows how even developed regions, specifically in the ANZ region, have low or stereotypical representation among visual storytelling in their respective markets.

According to their findings, 30% of such visuals depict gay men as ‘feminine’ and 31% of such visuals depict lesbian women as ‘masculine’. They also noted that 36% of such visuals depict gay men as ‘flamboyant’ and 25% of such visuals depict LGBTQ+ people carrying the rainbow flag in some capacity.

Consumer-wise, while 8 in 10 ANZ consumers say they expect brands to be consistently committed to diversity and inclusion, only 4 in 10 feel accurately represented.

According to Kate Rourke, head of creative insights for Asia Pacific at Getty Images and iStock, Australian and New Zealand brands have a great opportunity to look beyond token opportunism, and create and use visuals that effectively reflect and speak to the LGBTQ+ community – without fear of backlash or to simply ‘tick a box’.

“Brands that continue to use cliched visual stereotypes to minimise risk of offending the more conversative customers, will do more harm in the long run. Our society is constantly evolving and changing. Our recent research also revealed that for Australians and New Zealanders the top way they know a company is truly committed to diversity and inclusion is by consistently showing a wide range of people, lifestyles, and cultures in their communications. Ignoring these cultural changes means they will lose out to their competitors in the long run,” Rouke stated.

That reliance has left some advertisers feeling hesitant when it comes to proactively depicting the LGBTQIA+ community in their campaigns and communications, especially outside of events like Mardi Gras. 

In response, Getty Images’ has recently released its ‘LGBTQIA+ Guidebook for Inclusive Visual Storytelling’ that gives brands and businesses practical recommendations for confidently making more inclusive visual choices when depicting the broader LGBTQIA+ community.

“Our hope for the Guidebook is to empower businesses to step up and depict the LGBTQIA+ community in authentic and thoughtful ways, rather than relying on often overused stereotypes. This can be as simple as choosing visuals of real LGBTQIA+ people in their daily lives such as walking a dog, going to school, at work, cooking, running errands, even grabbing a coffee or doing laundry,” Rourke added.

Manila, Philippines – As the month of June draws to an end, the observance and celebration of Pride Month is still on a roll in the country, a society that despite the growing movement to recognize the LGBTQIA+ community, still experiences stigma due to the conservative Catholic nature in the country. As a result, many in the LGBTQIA+ community tend to say ‘sorry’ for who they are.

Such is the message the Philippine arm of e-commerce platform Lazada aims to put across in its latest campaign in celebration of Pride Month.

Released as part of its newest short film series ‘Apology’, the first campaign shows three separate instances of members of the LGBTQIA+ community being stared down or perhaps misjudged, prompting them to say ‘sorry’. Then, on a positive note, the campaign shifts to its core message of understanding others, self-acceptance and love.

The film series is directed by esteemed filmmaker, Pepe Diokno.

“We at Lazada Philippines believe that Pride represents values such as inclusion and unity that should be embraced every single day. For 2021, we wanted to continue encouraging Filipinos to do their part in nurturing a culture where diversity is celebrated, inclusion is valued, and respect is championed,” said Neil Trinidad, chief marketing officer at Lazada Philippines.

As part of its Pride Month celebration, Lazada Philippines will bring together and spotlight talented artists from the LGBTQIA+ community through a series of live streamed events with ‘Pride is Alive’ from 23 to 27 June. From a live fashion and drag show to a make-up tutorial session and live talk sessions, consumers can enjoy a series of celebrations with film director Antoinette Jadaone, writer and actor Juan Miguel Severo, chef and author Clyde San Pedro, Cebu fashion designers, and drag queens Eva Papaya, Ms. Letket, Precious, Eken, Turing & Bench.

In addition, Lazada Philippines also teamed up with platform LoveYourself, Inc., to showcase a special Milkwear x LoveYourself Pride Month capsule collection where all proceeds from the sale will benefit LoveYourself, Inc.’s HIV awareness and free-testing projects.

Noel Evasco, head of partnerships at LoveYourself Inc. adds, “We are grateful to have this partnership with Lazada that allows us to not only be able to expand our reach to more people but to also continue spreading the message that now more than ever, we need to do our part in nurturing a culture that allows people to thrive authentically as they are.”

Manila, Philippines – Grab Philippines has recently released a public statement amid the ongoing issue of homophobic remarks from its partner delivery riders that netizens have pointed out regarding the launch of the McDonald’s x BTS meal in the country.

https://twitter.com/vmindables/status/1405089267940937729

Netizens have raised the alarm after a handful of deliver rider partners of the app posted homophobic statements against the popular K-pop group BTS, calling them ‘BTS Biot’ or ‘BTS gay’, labeling BTS as a group of gay people. 

The influx of these homophobic statements comes after a rise in food deliveries of the BTS McDo meal across Grab deliveries in the country, which consists of a 10-piece chicken McNuggets, medium fries, and Coke, as well as McDonald’s South Korea’s two popular dipping sauces – sweet chili and cajun. 

In the statement, Grab Philippines stated that “inclusivity is one of Grab’s core values, and we have a zero-tolerance policy for inexcusable behaviors.”

They also added that they have immediately suspended the delivery-partners in question and will continue to work hard to maintain an inclusive and diverse platform.

“Our delivery-partners continue to provide significant services for our kababayans (countrymen) during these trying times. We hope that our consumers will not let the actions of a few select individuals affect the livelihoods of the many delivery-partners who rely on the Grab platform to support their families,” the company added.

Despite the statement, netizens continue to raise concerns about delivery riders of Grab who are still not given appropriate action.

Twitter user @vmindables stated that the attitude of these select riders are very much ‘disturbing’, but their co-delivery riders ‘tolerating’ such acts are even more gut-wrenching.

“All we wanted was to enjoy this short season in peace. This isn’t just about the hate against BTS but also the mockery against the LGBTQ+ Community. Educate your riders. Stop making ‘biot’ or other third-gender terms an insult and a figure of fun and mockery,” the user added.

Meanwhile, Twitter user @yeontaeberrykim commented that said action is not only applicable for the sake of BTS, but also the use of slurs against the members of the LGBTQ+ community.

https://twitter.com/yeontaeberrykim/status/1405500651757391881

“It is also important to remind the delivery partners to act accordingly. There is no place for prejudice. As you said, inclusivity is one of your core values and this should be reflected by your partners and their services towards your customers,” the user added.

Manila, Philippines – To commemorate Pride Month this June, creative agency Dentsu in the Philippines has launched TheUnlimitedLoveLanguage.com – a website that aims to teach people how to appropriately converse and speak with people from the LGBTQIA+ community – one with respect and sensitivity. 

We’ve come so far in terms of where the society stands towards the LGBTQIA+ community, with different platforms adapting their views and stands to become a more inclusive community. We have been seeing governments declaring the first-ever LGBTQIA+ officials, and also bills being passed for the greater good and welfare of the community. 

In terms of the baseline on the other hand – the everyday conversations and dealings we have with people from the community – there is still so much to learn and be more of. Companies and even common individuals have taken it upon themselves to practice the appropriate use of pronouns in accordance with a person’s identified gender – but there is so much more to it. On Twitter, we hear normal people and celebrities alike still share incidents of microaggressions, and this is what dentsu Philippines aims to solve. 

‘The Unlimited Love Language’ website presents a list of various hyperspecific statements often heard among people when conversing with those that identify as LGBTQIA+. Examples are “I support lesbians. But why do you look like a normal girl?” or some Tagalog statements like “May boyfriend ka? Respect, pare. But I have to say ‘di ko akalain. ‘Di ka naman mukhang bakla!” which in English, translates to “You have a boyfriend? Kudos, bro. I have to say it doesn’t look like it. You don’t look gay!”.

When visitors click on each statement, they will be directed to an expanded explanation of why such is a microaggression and provides insight on how it ought to make an LGBTQIA+ individual feel and what can be said instead if one wants to send across their ‘unlimited love’.

The website is Filipino-dedicated with a mix of English and Tagalog statements. On the right, it translates, “So you are apparently a lesbian? Good for you! But sucks for us guys. It’s a pity, you’re beautiful.” Just one of the examples of microagressions thrown at lesbians.

In addition, the website also provides free Zoom or video call backgrounds for people to further show their support to the community.

Dentsu Philippines’ Connections Strategy and Research Lead Roki Ferrer shared that about 48% of LGBTQIA+ people experience some form of discrimination within the family.

“People think that not being bluntly homophobic makes them supportive. But tolerance is not acceptance. That’s why we need to condition people’s minds towards unconditional acceptance by heart,” said Ferrer.

Meanwhile, JC Catibog, the country CEO at Dentsu Philippines, commented that they believe that true acceptance is only possible when there’s empathy, that is why showing how LGBTQIA+ people feel, and having a two-way conversation is so important. 

“As our own Dentsu Consumer Vision 2030 trends show, sexuality and gender will soon be less determined by birth. Hence, if we aren’t already, we need to start learning how to love unlimitedly,” said Catibog.

The website is now live and provides an option as well for people to be ‘teachers’ of the love language.