This year, ADCOLOR, an annual conference championing diversity & inclusion in creative industries, prepared to celebrate its 15th annual award show and conference and return to in-person gathering. They were eager to introduce a powerful new theme to re-ground the community in the mission of the organization: to inspire the creative community to immerse themselves in the fight for equity and inclusion. The objective was to create a theme and launch it in a powerful way, empowering ADCOLOR’s community to lean into a collective commitment to action.

ADCOLOR, an annual conference championing diversity & inclusion in creative industries, tasked us with creating and launching their newest platform “Pull Up”. After a year of big talk on inclusion, we wanted to go beyond words. While the message of our film calls on Allies and ADCOLOR members to Pull Up, we also added an interactive component that lets viewers take action by clicking on 200+ colored dots throughout the film. Each dot links to an initiative from historically excluded communities—enabling viewers to donate, subscribe, follow, purchase, and just generally ACT. And speaking of historically-excluded communities, they took center stage in our film; we featured a diverse range of artists within the ADCOLOR circle. Even the subtitles were created by BIPOC designers. Our film about action had inclusive action on every frame, helping people to Pull Up–not only for the ADCOLOR conference, but every day after.

The strategy that led to the “About that Action” ADCOLOR film and experience first and foremost focused on eliciting excitement in the diverse ADCOLOR creative community, but also needed to speak to Allies of that community. It was important to balance appealing to both those that are already active voices and those that are new and freshly joining. The message needed to be mobilizing and inspirational. Creative industries ADCOLOR serve include advertising/marketing, film, sports, art, and music.

The “About that Action” interactive film features hundreds of clickable dots to take action in support of historically-excluded communities. The film itself and this interactive feature were developed utilizing the interactive and embeddable video platform WIREWAX on a very tight timeline and minimal budget. Every organization, person, or entity related to the clickable dots was contacted for approval and participation. The film itself also represents a broad scope of diverse creators: directed by Boma Iluma (of NEGUS, HEiRS, and COMFORT), featuring actual artists and innovators as talent (Maya Iman, Storm Smith, Don Carrrlos, Elisa Wong, and Charli Michele), music by Tayo Adewole, and even featuring subtitles with fonts by BIPOC designers (Graham Bradley, Alli Cunanan, Sergio Ramírez Llamas, Tré Seals, Indian Type Foundry).

The “About that Action” interactive film experience was used to launch the 20,000 conference attendees in-person and online into the four day conference of speakers, experiences and the annual award show. Online view, social shares and earned impressions aggregated to a total of 3.9MM organic impressions the week of the conference. The film served as a catalyst for individual action, and a constant reminder that it’s every individual’s responsibility to be in a constant state of motion – action. Through follows, shares, donations, and purchases at all 200+ organizations included in the interactive film, everyone who interacts with ADCOLOR has a responsibility and the resources at their fingertips to Rise up. Reach back. And PULL UP.