Londoners to star alongside celebrities supporting Pride in London’s #FreedomTo multi-channel ad campaign
With just two weeks to go until the main Pride in London event celebrating the LGBT+ community, the event organisers can today unveil a celebrity-backed evolving campaign in which Londoners will be invited to become part of the marketing to promote this year’s #FreedomTo theme.
The 2014 Pride in London Parade will take place on Saturday the 28th June. This year’s theme is #FreedomTo, which is all about celebrities and members of the public alike communicating what Pride means to them.
In a first for Pride, members of the public could see themselves being used in the promotional activity in the run-up to the Pride in London parade. Handling the user generated content and display element of the campaign is digital out of home agency Enigma – www.enigmacode.co.uk – whose founder, Andrew Newman, helped to devise a commercial strategy for Pride in London.
Celebrities including Sir Ian McKellan, Kylie Minogue, Graham Norton, Sir Elton John and Ben Cohen have already backed the campaign. Of the 150+ messages already submitted, examples include:
Sir Ian McKellan: “#FreedomTo be who you are and what you would like to be”
Graham Norton: “#FreedomTo be camp!”
Funmi Iyanda: “#FreedomTo support equality without fear and harassment”
To get involved, members of the public are asked to write their own personal #FreedomTo messages on a large piece of paper. By sharing this photo on Facebook or Twitter using the #FreedomTo hashtag, the Pride team will pick it up. Submissions that catch the eye of the team will be invited you to a photoshoot. More information can be found here: www.prideinlondon.org/freedomto.
Media owner Exterion Media has become a campaign partner, contributing more than half a million pounds worth of support. This commitment means the multi-channel campaign featuring the personal #FreedomTo messages and sponsors’ logos will be prominent across London’s bus and tube network, reaching millions of Londoners in the event build-up every single day.
This video introduces the #FreedomTo campaign: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_fiQefoSL8
The media campaign will evolve over the course of the two weeks leading up to Pride day. The first week will include a call to action asking members of the public to submit their own personal #FreedomTo messages. The people behind the best entries will then be filmed and included in animated panel adverts alongside the supporting celebrities.
The second week – Pride Week (Commences Monday 23rd June) – the panels will also show highlights of supportive Pride parties, galas and live events – all of which are detailed here: http://prideinlondon.org/plan/whats-on/. This content will all be filmed by attendees themselves using filmmaking app Seenit, and in a user generated content first, the footage will then be edited by Enigma to be shown on the Exterion screens.
On Pride Day itself, the tube ads will change to say ‘Happy Pride’, including geo-specific information about how to travel to the Pride event from that station.
A media relationship has been struck with TV channel London Live, which will see the channel take the user generated content to create community profile films to be serialised during Pride Week.
Andrew Newman, co-founder of Enigma had the following to say, ‘We’re delighted this campaign has attracted the imagination of celebrities and members of the public alike, bringing people together for a common cause. Not only can you support Pride as before, you can now be a part of the campaign around it!
‘As Pride requires commercial support to be held, we needed to strike a balance to ensure that our diverse community was represented, while giving real value to sponsors and brands. We feel the #FreedomTo campaign achieves that and is something we can all be proud of.’
