PRE-PRIDE CAMPAIGN This May, as an extension of its Meaningful Media asked, and GAY TIMES thoughtfully responded with their advice initiative, Havas Media Group and GAY TIMES Group as well as tips and resources for learning more. Throughout the partnered together to celebrate Pride Month a month month of May we released each Q&A on our Havas All In earlier with an educational awareness programme blog and shared them with the network via the Havas from that provided Havas Group’s 20,000+ employees with Home (now Life@Havas) newsletter and our Instagram real answers to honest questions about the LGBTQ+ Stories. Based on the readership for each, it was clear that the community. Havas Group’s Anne Zapalac and Tag Warner, questions were top-of-mind for employees. CEO of GAY TIMES Group, share how the partnership came together and how the programme helped employees TW: We wanted to ensure the questions were genuine and become more aware and informed allies. honest, even if they could be deemed problematic. When it comes to comms-based campaigns, you can tell when the Tell us a little about how the Pre-Pride initiative came to output has been cleansed of any challenging topics - so we be. How did the partnership with GAY TIMES Group get were excited to answer real questions from the employee base. started? We knew we would see some geographic areas ask LGBTQ+ related questions in a way that could be more challenging, AZ: We began thinking about Pride 2020 back in early March but embraced this rather than shunning the real experience before lockdown started, and saw a unique opportunity to bring of people around the world. The partnership between together Havas Media’s Meaningful Media initiative and our Havas Media and GAY TIMES Group stemmed from Havas’ global DE&I programme, Havas All In. With GAY TIMES as one Meaningful Media initiative that studies and champions the of our Meaningful Media partners, we began discussing ways media that matters most to audiences—media that is engaging, to engage our employees in a new way. We wanted to not just trusted, and influential. share our support of Pride, but actually educate and create opportunities for honest discussions around topics that many How did Pre-Pride affect social change? people, frankly, are nervous to bring up, or don’t know how to approach in the workplace. We were fortunate for our approach TW: We’re so often asked genuine questions that may seem because when working from home became the new norm and naive but are important to answer if we all want to do better for global Pride events were cancelled, we were still able to carry the global LGBTQ+ community. Through this initiative we were on and have an impact. Plus, it was a way to “celebrate” from able to bring the broader community into the conversation on home! LGBTQ+ topics. No matter your age, gender, sexual orientation, it’s ok to have questions and to keep learning. It’s how we can TW: GAY TIMES is a Meaningful Media partner to Havas all go beyond just Pride month to push the dial because we’re passionate about creating LGBTQ+ media that and affect real social change. affects real socialchange. Thechance to help educate Havas employees around LGBTQ+ topics was exciting to us, and AZ: On a personal level I found it to be meaningful and being able to do so ahead of Pride Month was even better. motivating – it enabled me to connect with my younger brother We often find LGBTQ+ themes centre around pride - but with and other LGBTQ+ peers to hear their perspective on things like 84% of the community calling for representation outside of what comments they consider offensive an how to approachd Pride, anything but the summer months are going to be more certain scenarios. Through that process and through partnering impactful to start tackling these themes. with GAY TIMES, I had a learning experience of my own that I’m really grateful for. What was the strategy behind having a Pride activation before Pride Month in June? Were you surprised at the engagement the initiative had? And will the campaign extend to 2021? AZ: Our hope was to get ahead of the “noise” that usually happens during Pride Month in June, and offer a unique AZ: This was our first global initiative celebrating and creating opportunity for some meaningful dialogue and awareness on awareness around Pride, so we had hoped for some good important topics. Rather than the typical “rainbow logo,” we engagement! But the interest in each Q&A and the feedback we wanted something employees could take away and carry into received from employees was better than we could have hoped. their celebrations in June and beyond. From employees feeling more belonging and like they can show up as their true selves at work, to sending a louder message of TW: We’re starting to see trends across all media where Pride throughout the network, the initiative was representation isn’t necessarily seen as ‘good’ just for doing it impactful on many levels. I definitely look forward to what’s next - where audiences are growing tired of frequent brand missteps in 2021! - where non-default demographics are becoming louder in their push back when brands get it wrong. It’s important to TW: We’d love the chance to partner on something again. understand that just because we call media ‘authentic’ it We’ve already been able to partner with some EMEA Havas doesn’t always mean it is. Successful pride activations over the clients to showcase their campaigns to our audience in a way coming years will be moving outside of summer months and to that previously would have been impossible. There’s much in other times of year. We were excited that Havas both listened the works for 2021, so…stay tuned! and encouraged this move by activating ahead of time. If interested in exploring the Pre-Pride Q&A series, scan here: How did you ensure the questions were most relevant to employees around the globe, and how did the Q&As get created and shared? AZ: It was important for us to really understand the topics on employees’ minds, so we asked employees to submit questions anonymously (with just their country as an identifier). We narrowed the questions based on what was most commonly 49 DARE!