ABSOLUT ALLY

LBB IMMORTAL AWARDS ENTRY 2023

A short summary of what happens in the films.

10 members of LGBTQIA+ community recount conversations, from their past, that was hurtful. Alongwith a simple yet powerful advice is helpful to millions in becoming more sensitive allies

The films find inspiration from different personalities and icons from the LGBTQIA+ community, who share experiences from their lives, for everyone to understand - the appropriate way to have conversations, whenever talking to an individual from the LGBTQIA+ community. Each film talks about a small point that comes with one of higher importance and implication - 'How to be an Ally'.

Background:

• Situation

• Brief

• Objectives

“Where the head is held high, and the mind is without fear, into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake”. – from Rabindra Nath Tagore’s work that was awarded a Nobel in 1913. 

No words can better describe the world that Absolut believes in for every human and for every human who identifies with the LGBTQIA+ community. But for these words to come true, we have to be absolutely free of biases. Only when our perceptions would be uncoloured we would be like Absolut - colorless. 

“Born Colourless” is not just our line, it’s our north star. It defines us & guides us. As it did here. 

Brief: Fight against the hurt that individuals who identify LGBTQIA+ community, face due to the lack of sensitivity prevalent among the CisHets

Objective: How can we make people with right intent also have right sensitivities towards members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Describe the Impact:

• Impact

• Reach

• Engagement

• Change in Behaviour

• Brand perception

• Achievement against objectives

The campaign was overwhelmingly received as a genuine and much needed initiative. 

It achieved a total of 91M views, (145% of the target) with cumulative reach over 50mn, (117% of the target) and an overall VTR of 23% (132% of the target)

But the campaign did something much bigger, it engaged well-respected influencers and celebrities like Kusha Kapila, Swara Bhaskar among others, with millions of followers, to share it with their own followers. Their voice reached more than 10M additional followers. Important media voices like Vice media, Home Grown, Better India etc. picked it up and amplified it further, to reach approximately 10 million more. 

Paid amplification on Meta, YouTube, Spotify garnered more than 50 million reach and more than 200 Million impressions.

The biggest achievement was, however, that it inspired members of the LGBTQIA+ community to share their experiences and instances of CisHets literally changing the conversation.

Cultural insight that inspired the work

Even when we accept the “others”, we often don’t stop feeling superior.

Indian society is steeped in social hierarchy. Caste system, stronger communities, economic rungs…. Before we realize Indians are either feeling superior or subservient. And in one scenario we are unmindful of being insensitive and in the other accepting of it as inevitable. 

Which is why CisHets, who were fundamentally accepting of the community, were conditioned to believe that with their acts of acceptance they have done enough, not realizing that it is actually the first step, and a whole learning needs to be undertaken

The campaign was developed following in-depth interactions with a diverse set of respondents. The big learning was that, even amongst the CisHets, there is still a fair bit of ignorance towards the realities of queer people. Hence, the need to sensitize CisHets and enable them to be stronger and more trustworthy allies.

Cultural context that would help the jury understand how this work was perceived by people in the country where it ran?

“Will a rainbow tinted brand logo be enough to create awareness among the masses and end discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community in India?” is a question that is being asked by many ands more often 

While supporting the LGBTQIA+ community brands, like CisHets need to be more sensitive to the community’s needs. Pinkwashing was doing the exact opposite of normalization. Absolut could not be quiet or superficial. 

The need of the hour was to help everyone more towards true normalization. 

We knew we were distinct and correct when we heard of this story. One of our influencers, Jay, a trans man, who co-created one of the films, was asked to join the women’s queue at the airport security check, but another security officer recognized them and objected to this treatment. Upon hearing about the incident the airport authorities apologized to Jay. 

Why is this work relevant for LBB Immortal Awards?

Insensitivity hurts as much as hostility.

In 2018, India's Supreme Court decriminalized consensual sexual relations among people of the same gender and offered protection against hostility. The legitimacy and dignity accorded to the LGBTQIA+ community were unprecedented. It empowered members of the community to be more open and encouraged all others to be more accepting. 

However, centuries of binary and rigidly defined gender and sexuality notions have simply not let us develop the sensitivities we ought to have towards the LGBTQIA+ community. Consequently, a lot of Indian cishets who don’t intend to discriminate, invariably hurt non-binaries through their insensitive choice of words.

Absolut Ally Playbook is an attempt to make the well-meaning more sensitive and, hence, the society truly more inclusive. It speaks to the well intentioned cishets and implores them to do better, with the hope that they will in turn set higher standards for the rest of society.

Describe the cultural / social / political climate around gender representation and the significance of the work within this context.

The law has changed, but the habits still need to. 

Despite the strides on the legal front, our research with the communities showed that a lot remained unchanged on ground. The world is certainly more aware of LGBTQIA+ community and is also more accepting of their right to co-exist, but the world is very far from being equally theirs. It’s far from being sensitive to them, far from truly including them in their rituals, language, thinking…often making them choose to lead extremely private (even inauthentic) lives. 

Unfortunately a lot of conversation on the issue remains superficial and is more akin to pinkwashing than driving normalization.

From our research we concluded that the need to sensitize cishet people was most imperative, as they are the ones who constitute a major part of social and work environments. And if they inflict hurt, even inadvertently, it's most lethal. 

Describe the creative idea

This time, get the LGBTQIA+ community to help out the allies. 

While we deeply feel the state of the LGBTQIA+ community, we also equally well understand the struggle of well-intentioned cishets. They don’t know what they don’t know. And quite frankly, the only ones who truly ‘know’ are the individuals from the community, and hence we realized that this time the LGBTQIA+ community has to come to the aid of the larger society. To let them know what they ought to know, through the 10 video episodes of the Absolut Playbook

In the campaign, ten diverse influencers from LGBTQIA+ spectrum recount seemingly innocuous yet provocative aspects of their interactions with the world around them. The beauty of each narrative is that cishets can instantly see/ hear themselves at some point, inadvertently saying the same things, making errors of judgment, and a moment later learning what they should have said, instead.

Describe the strategy

• Data gathering

• Target audience (consumer demographic / individuals / organizations)

• Approach

Cishets set the benchmark for the rest of the society, more sensitive they are, towards the members of the LGBTQIA+ community, more inclusive the whole society is

In-depth research told us that LGBTQIA+ people were most hurt when their immediate peers, friends, and colleagues in their chats spoke only in binaries or made assumptions about gender or the gender of one’s partner without giving a second thought.

It became clearer that the next step in normalization is to expand our culture, our language, or our thinking to include the non-binary and the fluids, and for that, things will have to be unlearned and some new things will have to be learned and practiced. 

The place to focus was the well intentioned allies, betting on the inherent goodness in their hearts that they would be willing to unlearn and learn and then, through their actions, teach the rest of the world.

Describe the execution

• Implementation

• Timeline

• Placement

• Scale

In the execution, itself, we talked and walked the talk 

Talk: Across relevant media The campaign went live in Jan’23, across all key platforms where our TG is most likely to be present – META, YT, IG, FB, SPOTIFY etc. 

Act: Pubs and bars We collaborated with Mr. Bartender & The Crew, India’s first bar academy for women (especially for the underprivileged, human trafficking victims, ex-prison inmates and members of the LGBTQIA+ community). We conducted sensitization workshops for bartenders, helping them be appropriate and welcoming while conversing with the guests from the LGBTQIA+ community. The first leg, targeted 100 bars, across the country. 

A safe and happy space for self expression: The brand conducted Pride nights in key metropolises with drag performances and artists from the community.

A walkway was created at a prime location in Mumbai to engage the audience through gesture technology, performers from the community were invited to perform.

Describe the results / impact

• Effects on brand association or consumer awareness around gender representation

• Long term impacts - achieved in wider social or cultural space

• Business impact – sales, donations, site traffic

• Change in behavior

• Brand perception

The campaign was overwhelmingly received  as a genuine and much needed initiative. 

It achieved a total of 91M views, (145% of the target) with cumulative reach over 50mn, (117% of the target) and an overall VTR of 23% (132% of the target)

But the campaign did something much bigger, it engaged well-respected influencers and celebrities like Kusha Kapila, Swara Bhaskar among others, with millions of followers, to share it with their own followers. Their voice reached more than 10M additional followers. Important media voices like Vice media, Home Grown, Better India etc. picked it up and amplified it further, to reach approximately 10 million more. 

Paid amplification on Meta, YouTube, Spotify garnered more than 50 million reach and more than 200 Million impressions.

The biggest achievement was, however, that it inspired members of the LGBTQIA+ community to share their experiences and instances of CisHets literally changing the conversation.

Why is this work relevant?

The authenticity, in every aspect, was unprecedented 

Most campaigns show what they believe LGBTQIA+ feels, desires, or even more fundamentally, is. 

In our conversations with the community we found them cringing at some of the representations. 

The least we could do was not be another such communication. Which is why the campaign is built around their real stories, told by them. We also ensured representation from all cohorts within the community as the challenges faced by them were unique for everyone .  

It had a snowball effect as not only the friends of these influencers shared our message further, but also other allies, powerful voices widely shared it on social media. We firmly believe that the authenticity of the narrative, attracted other authentic voices and created a resonance beyond imagination.

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