Our mission was to amplify local Pride celebrations, while driving HBO Max brand affinity and awareness of our queer programming. HBO Max’s Human By Orientation Pride 2022 vision was to empower the full spectrum of the LGBTQ+ community to thrive through in-person community engagement (via activations with queer BIPOC party collectives) and a massive social media push (including custom-content showcasing 40+ series and movies).
GOALS:
Amplify and celebrate Human By Orientation-sponsored in-person celebrations with queer collectives
Drive awareness of HBO Max’s queer programming and in-app Pride collection
Drive engagement around HBO Max titles on Human By Orientation-owned channels
Instead of creating yet another corporate Pride event in an over-saturated market, HBO Max’s Human By Orientation partnered with queer collectives to amplify Pride celebrations across the country. We identified people and collectives already doing the work of bringing the community together and supported their visions to celebrate Pride in their respective areas: in LA we partnered with Ostbahnhof; in Miami we partnered with Masisi; and in Brooklyn we partnered with xCakes, Club Carry, and DickAppointment. Each group pitched their ideas to us and we worked with them to bring them to life. By sharing our resources with these collectives, we built authentic Pride events that benefited the community.
While each activation was designed and realized by the collectives, we found organic ways to weave in consistent and subtle HBO Max branding. At each party, we invited content creators to takeover the @humanbyorientation social handle, bringing the energy of each party to the larger LGBTQ+ community. Partners included drag queen Kerri Colby, entrepreneur and model Jaé Joseph, and reality TV star/artist Basit.
At the parties, guests also enjoyed music from rotating local DJs, art installations, pop-up performances, and a Euphoria-inspired floral photo moment. Each guest left the event with a custom co-branded t-shirt designed by each city’s respective collective(s), alongside a thank you note that included a QR-code driving people to the HBO Max in-app LGBTQ+ Voices page.
HBO Max’s in-app LGBTQ+ Voices page houses all of the brand’s queer programming (including Hacks, Euphoria, Legendary, We’re Here, and more). As part of the page, Human By Orientation produced 30+ shortform original videos that showcase and amplify HBO Max queer talent. Featured content includes: Queerness in Conversation, Get Ready With Me, Serving Lewks, and Culture Closeup.
In addition to our in-person activations, Human By Orientation extended our Pride celebration through a robust social content rollout. In addition to promoting our parties with each collective, we featured custom content from over 40 HBO Max programs and movies. Through social amplification, we maximized the reach of our Pride parties and amplified awareness of HBO Max queer programming.
In the end, our community-focused, multi-channel strategy contributed to our success. HBO Max’s Human By Orientation Pride 2022 campaign garnered over 5.6 billion impressions through 3 live events, 30 days of custom content, and over 200 community partners. Our social campaign drove 30 million impressions, 217K engagements, and 5.45% follower growth.
After two years of virtual Pride celebrations, we brought the community back together in-person and successfully solidified HBO Max’s Human By Orientation as the destination for queer folks to thrive and celebrate Pride 2022.
