ANZ challenges hurtful homophobic language with #LoveSpeech campaign via TBWA\Melbourne
CB Exclusive: For this year’s Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras sponsorship, ANZ and TBWA\Melbourne are empowering the Australian LGBTIQ+ community and its allies to challenge hurtful homophobic language by spreading a little #LoveSpeech.
In Australia, 74% of the LGBTIQ+ community believe that hurtful and homophobic language directed at them is a major issue, but only 34% feel confident in calling it out.
With 52% of non-LGBTIQ+ Australians believing the community get offended too easily, it’s no wonder the community feels disempowered to confront it.
As principal partner of Mardi Gras, ANZ has launched #LoveSpeech – a campaign born from the bank’s ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion.
To ignite the conversation, a raw, emotive film has been released which calls attention to the profoundly negative effects hurtful language has on the the LGBTIQ+ community –underscoring that “Words Do Hurt”.
Directed by The Glue Society, the film portrays a collection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer individuals sharing their own lived experiences.
Hugely confronting in its unscripted honesty, the film concludes on a hopeful note – appealing for a world with more #LoveSpeech.
Surrounding the film, ANZ is revealing a prominent billboard overlooking the Mardi Gras parade-route which boldly espouses that “Boys Should Never Wear Dresses”, only to see LGBTIQ+ Graffiti artist, David Lee Prereira, disarm this hurtful slur by adding, “Without A Killer Pair of Heels”. The billboard is supported by a series of colourful posters and gifs that take frequently heard hurtful comments and flip them into #LoveSpeech.
In addition, ANZ has created two useful tools in the quest for more #LoveSpeech. The “Hurt Blocker” is a Google Chrome Extention, which transforms hurtful slurs into fun-loving emoji’s. And ANZ’s Guide to #LoveSpeech helps people understand how words (even when unintentional) can hurt.
Says Sweta Mehra, chief marketing officer for ANZ: “We are incredibly proud of the work we have done over the years to demonstrate support for our LGBTIQ+ staff, customers and community. This year’s campaign is no different. With unkind, cruel and damaging comments directed at the community every single day, we think it’s time for more #LoveSpeech.”
Says TBWA\Melbourne: “As a long time sponsor of Mardi Gras, ANZ has a remarkable history of support for LGBTIQ+ inclusion. In a world where intentional hatred and casual homophobia can be shouted from the rooftops without any real consequence, #LoveSpeech draws a line in the sand for a more civilised, more respectful and less combative conversation.”
The campaign is further supported by a PR strategy which sees influencers Benjamin Law (social commentator and writer), Moana Hope (AFLW) and Georgie Stone (actress and trans advocate) lend their voices to the initiative.
Says Thrive PR: “As highlighted by the research, hurtful language is not only an issue that deeply affects the LGBTIQ+ community, but one that affects us as a nation. What is most startling is the discrepancy between what is perception and what is sadly, reality. We encourage everyone to get behind ANZ’s Love Speech campaign. Let’s spread a little more #LoveSpeech far and wide.”
ANZ Bank Australia
TBWA\Melbourne
Thrive PR
Revolver/Will O’Rourke and The Glue Society
PHD Media
Source: YouGov Galaxy Research, Jan 2020
31 Comments
I like the print. It turns a negative into a positive.
The video just seems all negative to me though. Mardi Gras is a celebration, where’s the positive spin in the video? Where’s the hope?
Instead of pushing positivity – let’s push for real conversations.
Not everything needs to be Disney.
The optimisim is in calling out the bullshit behaviour that permeates our culture but lies just underneath the epidermis – so that real behaviour change happens.
This will have the power to change vernacular.
Remember “like a girl”?
No one said you throw “like a girl” anymore.
The film is pretty powerful, although apart from a hashtag it doesn’t really leave me with anything to do.
The OOH is only okay. Nowhere near TBWA’s usual standard on ANZ for Mardi Gras.
But still good work all round.
This is freaking awesome.
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall at ANZ when the work was presented.
Words like Faggot and carpet muncher would have made a whole lot of people freaking uncomfortable.
Go ANZ for being brave enough to do this kind of work.
What a client.
And well done TBWA Melb for exceptional, important work.
So We need more love.
Not more hate.
Goes for this blog too…
Yes the film is different from the other ANZ work but it’s time to evolve and address a serious side. It’s time to call out the casual homophobia and ignorance around these little words like “fag” that hold a lot of weight for the LGBTIQ+ community. That word and all other comments need to GO. Good work ANZ for changing the tone and doing something a little braver – this might actually be effective. Bravo
Brilliant.
The Gaytm was a bit of fun, this is sooooo much more. Well done to all. And I love the fact the film hits hard, while the OOH harnesses the joy of Mardi Gras and celebrates in style.
No doubt there’ll be plenty of haters…but sadly that’s the point.
Great design
Wow. Incredibly confronting. Brave, powerful work. Kudos TBWA and ANZ
The film (while true and a problem) doesn’t feel like it offers any new insights – the Hold On campaign still makes me tear up. Everyone knows name calling is bad. It’s the casual homophobia that is the worst – assuming that I’m fab simply for being gay (which I am, but for other reasons)
I get called most of those names every day. And all I do is ride a bike.
That’s very funny!
@jrhennesey on twitter sums this right up:” a slur blocking plugin, released by a bank, with an ad full of slurs (which can’t be blocked with the plugin) with a name referencing an iraq war movie for some reason… yep, i’m calling it a win”
As a marketer and a member of the LGBTQI+ community, I think this all is a bit off-key.
This aside, the print work is great.
The film is incredibly triggering for people who have ACTUALLY been called these awful, traumatising things. It’s received a lot of backlash from the queer community who have called for a language warning to be added at the start of the film and rightly so. The print just comes off as insulting.
I respect the attempt but it’s basically ‘this Coke is a Fanta’ by DAVID. They just replaced the payoff with a trashtag
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YWkMvgRYAfE
I like it. But most of the LGBTQI+ people I know outside of advertising hate it.
this have to do with banking, out of curiosity?
I hope you didn’t pay anyone for those terrible images?
They are juvenile and offensive.
THE PRINT is rockin’
Turn the print into your next film.
Yeah, just another virtue signalling brand. So 2019.
https://youtu.be/FdBH9s3Ae1c
A bank did this? Brilliant work ANZ & TBWA. Stop the Hate indeed – we can all learn something from this. Bravo!
This is truly wonderful, powerful stuff. Thank you ANZ ffor having the balls to make this.
Tough to watch? Try living it. That was my whole life at school. Great to see a big brand sticking its neck out. Our pollies certainly don’t!.
Isn’t this just a rework of Reword?
So… why is nobody who’s over 35 (and possibly over 30) represented in this work?
If anyone knows about gay slurs, it’s us. Not pretty enough? Not cool enough? Sorry, not good enough. You may have been going for diversity in sexuality but you forgot a whole heap of people in the meantime.
The browser extension that censors the world for you, as if Google weren’t already censoring your world enough already. Do a Google image search on the term “straight couple” and see what results you get. Then do “white couple”. The brave new world of homosexual norms and globalist everything is being engineered in The West by the degenerates running Silicone Valley with the result being declining birthrates for people of European descent. Is this something to be celebrated by those same people? Are you angry at me for mentioning this? Does that mean you’ve been being brainwashed? Call me a homophobe if you like but do the searches, at least. And look into the birthrates thing.
I think Nobby did it first back at S&S.
Does originality still count if it’s for a good cause? I think it does.
https://youtu.be/FdBH9s3Ae1c
Wow. Pretty impactful video. Kudos to ANZ and TBWA. Homophobic comments suck. The more we talk about this the better.
This is just another version of reword
Congrats to all the ignorant agency back-slappers above. The gay community hates this and you’ve now triggered a brand boycott.
Get woke, go broke.