Our business goal was to build brand awareness while showing our support for Pride in a way that embodied Visible’s purpose to ‘enable life’s essential connections.’ To that end, we partnered with SAGE—an organization that advocates for LGBTQ+ elders—to bring different generations of queer people together and help shine a light on the often underrepresented experiences of LGBTQ+ elders who were there when Pride began.
What better way to do that than with a 70s-themed, socially-lead, Pride game show!
No Straight Answers–our delightfully campy intergenerational game show (that was secretly a history lesson), brought together two teams of LGTBQ+ influencers—the Old Gays and Young Slays—going head-to-head in original games like “LGBTQ&A” and “Slang Slam,” testing contestants’ knowledge of queer history, culture, and style, with host Benny Drama conducting proceedings and bringing the best out of everyone on screen.
Visible’s younger demo is super savvy to corporate Pride plays that miss the mark. For us, authenticity was crucial. To ensure this, we let the community speak for itself. Every game and question was written and/or vetted by the agency’s queer cohort. The LGBTQ+ director and talent laughed, riffed, and collaborated, and their ad-libbed moments made for the shoot’s very best content. And with the inclusion of queer elder experiences being so central to the campaign, it was that much more important the voice of our older talent was heard loudly and proudly.
To get the look and feel just right, we designed and built a custom ’70s-themed set, handpicked wardrobe that fit each player’s personality, and kept branding light enough to connect the whole thing to Visible without distracting from the message.
To reach as big an audience as this hilarious game show deserved, we tailored our production specifically for social. While the full 6-minute show was available to view on Youtube, snackable standalone clips were made just for TikTok and Instagram. Each contestant posted personalized moments on their individual channels, which extended our reach and, more importantly, extended the visibility of the LGBTQ+ senior class in an genuine way, from an insiders’ point of view.
The first-ever Pride game show (by a wireless company, anyway) left fans wanting more.
The campaign achieved our brand-awareness goals, reaching 15.2M+ potential accounts, bolstered by our extended network of influencer audiences. It surpassed Visible’s 2021 Pride results and outperformed our previous best for paid media in a similar timeframe. PR had greater impact than previous campaigns, garnering 75M+ unique impressions, and Meta and TikTok both successfully drove unique reach and quality site visits.
The full video was well-received by our organic audience with the highest engagement rate in Visible’s history on Instagram (+61% vs benchmark) and TikTok (+28% vs benchmark). An intense political climate led to a disproportionately high volume of hateful speech in response to Pride campaigns this year, and strict platform limitations required us to target broader audiences with paid media. Despite these factors, audience sentiment was overwhelmingly positive on Instagram (78%) and TikTok (58%), delivering success for the campaign in terms of building affinity and connecting people in a meaningful way.
