PFLAG raises the pride

Toronto PFlag (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) promotes the health and well-being of all members of the LGBTQ community, their families and friends through support, education and advocacy, and are committed to creating a more inclusive society.

With Toronto hosting World Pride 2014, Toronto PFlag wanted to do something that would show the city, the country and the rest of the world its commitment to promoting equality, ending bigotry and fostering further positive change.

JWT set out to show that when it comes to Pride, positivity and inclusiveness could triumph over negativity and prejudice. It wanted not only to expose the hate that is expressed towards the LGBTQ community on social media, but to fight against it, in real-time, using the LGBTQ community's most recognizable icon: the Pride flag.

The idea was simple: create a motorized, Twitter-activated flag.

JWT and PFLAG placed its flag on the roof of a popular pub, right in the heart of the Toronto's Village on Church Street, and connected it to Twitter. Everyone could see and interact with it using the hashtag #RaisethePride. The special flag lowered to half-mast with every slur, and rose to the top with every positive tweet.

At street level, a screen broadcasted the Raise the Pride microsite, which had a digital version of the Pride flag synchronized to the physical flag, and displayed all the tweets that were making it rise and fall. In the end, it was a social tug of war, and a compelling visual demonstration of the impact of our words.

#RaisethePride garnered over 6% of all World Pride conversation, more than any major sponsor, which included a major Canadian airline, beer brand and telco.

It also earned more than 5.2 million social media impressions and was awarded at multiple award shows including a shortlist nod in the category of Creative Data Visualization at Cannes (the only recognition for Canada in this brand new category for Creative Data Lions).