Marketing agencies Iris and Drum have been crowned the first winners of a competition held by PrideAM – the group co-founded by Marketing Agencies Association’s boss Scott Knox – to reimagine leading brand ads for the LGBT community.
The images, which can be seen now in DIVA magazine in print and online (divadigital.co.uk) include the winning Starbucks ad by Drum and runners up from Iris with its versions on Coca-Cola and Gold Blend ads.
DIVA and Pride AM’s Knox asked agencies to re-engineer an ad from the past or present, while ensuring no intellectual property infringement, to demonstrate that heteronormative assumptions about lesbians and bi women have no place in a forward- thinking advertising culture.
Knox, MD of MAA and founding president of PrideAM, said: “It would be great to see Starbucks roll this out internationally. As a simple campaign idea it would really catch on and add the Starbucks might to the growing list of corporate names supporting the LGBT equality agenda.”
DIVA editor Jane Czyzselska added: “There are no prizes for guessing why patriarchal orthodoxy still reigns – heterosexual men often head up the top jobs and still control what we are permitted to see. In launching our competition we hoped we’d shake things up a bit in the industry, which seems uncharacteristically coy where LGBT consumers are concerned.”
Claimed to be the first group of its kind in the world, PrideAM (Pride in Advertising & Marketing) was founded to celebrate and encourage more LGBT discussion in this influential sector.
This first PrideAM project aims to drive change and forward-thinking in the industry that holds so much responsibility for people’s preconceptions and behaviour.
It also comes at a time when the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has launched an inquiry into negative gender stereotyping, signalling the start of a gear change in the industry.
