For many in the community even if you're ‘out’ and completely comfortable with your sexuality, holding hands with a partner in public can still feel awkward, tense or even scary – sometimes making it easier to just let go.

So we encouraged people to #HOLDTIGHT instead.

We wanted to celebrate the simple act of LGBTI couples holding hands.

We made it a mainstream conversation, spreading ANZ’s message to the community to ‘stay strong, be resilient, equality is coming.’

The campaign began with ANZ publishing a series of interviews online, featuring staff members sharing stories about holding hands.

A day ahead of Valentine’s Day, Media relations provided the sobering support by going to market with ANZ’s research findings.

A film was then shared online, showing a situation all-too-real for so many LGBTI people when holding hands in public - the moment where they let go.

It appeared via every ANZ owned social channel.

Radio was put to air featuring key spokespeople, ensuring the message would be heard well beyond metro cities.

Bringing the message to life during Mardi Gras, ANZ launched a piece of wearable tech, a custom wristband that used infrared to detect proximity between two wearers - lighting up when they held hands.

Billboards featuring same sex couples holding hands wearing the wristbands also ran.

A custom emoji was also developed to appear when people used #HOLDTIGHT

Media were keen to report on the evolution of ANZ’s support of Mardi Gras, with 456 media items falling across Australia New Zealand and international titles.

Coupled with the films’ more than 12 million views and 150,000 shares, there were nearly 750 million campaign impressions in total.

The most resounding result was the 100% positive tone in the reporting by third parties. In past years the flamboyance of ANZ’s Mardi Gras campaigns had sometimes divided the community, however, the truth at the heart of #HOLDTIGHT resonated extremely well.

Social sentiment was at 98% positive in response to the campaign - The highest the bank had ever seen.

Official brand tracking data put ANZ as the only one of the big four banks in Australia to achieve nett positive sentiment on social media during this time.

All of this resulting in the most successful sponsorship campaign ANZ had ever created.