For LGBTQ+ travellers, what's legal in one place can be punishable by prison, or worse, in the next. That's why we created DestinationPride.org - a data-driven search platform that reimagines the Pride flag as a dynamic bar graph, then uses it to visualize the world's LGBTQ+ laws, rights and social sentiment.

Users can search any town, city, province, state or country on earth. Our algorithm calculates six key measures of acceptance, such as marriage equality, sexual activity laws and real-time social media sentiment. Then it generates a Pride flag visualization based on the data. Each visualization provides a quick snapshot, and point of comparison for how far a destination is on its journey to LGBTQ+ acceptance.

Site visitors are invited to "Raise this flag" - a share engagement that contributes a positive social media impression, which is then aggregated into the flag visualization's purple bar.

The current iteration of DestinationPride.org has been in development for more than 18 months, and was market-tested across three distinct prototypes:

June 2017 - Beta.

January 2018 - Version 1.0 + launch campaign.

April 2018 - Version 2.0

Between major version releases, we implemented a series of updates and patches - each designed to address user feedback, tweak the algorithm for accuracy, and improve the user experience.

We supported our January 15, 2018 launch with PR and a global ad campaign that included more than 100 unique Facebook campaigns, running in 92 countries and 46 languages. Each targeted local LGBTQ+ communities and contained unique creative featuring the target country's flag - and contextual messaging based on region-specific insights.

In total and across disciplines, our team logged more than 5,000 hours creating, developing and refining DestinationPride.org and its campaign materials.

Data gathering and interpretation:

Please see "Describe the Strategy" above.

Data insights:

The sheer volume and decentralized nature of global legal data on LGBTQ+ issues is a barrier to access and, fundamentally, a barrier to progress. We can't change what we can't see.

Destination Pride harnesses that data and uses it as raw material for dynamic, individualized data visualizations - each one providing a single, and hyper-localized reference point for measuring progress.

Targeting: Our geographically individualized Facebook Ad campaigns targeted people who were interested in LGBTQ+ topics, groups and events, and who showed interest in travel. Ads ran in local languages, and were contextual to local conditions. For example, during Toronto's winter, our ads showed how to use the platform to find LGBTQ+ friendly hot spot vacations. Whereas in relatively hostile Moscow, we ran ads showing gay-friendly destinations within a direct flight.

Impact:

High relevance and context for site visitors.

Against our goal of drawing attention to global inequalities:

Users from 156 of the world's 195 countries

+85,000 destinations searched and flags generated

+135 pieces of media coverage

Business impact:

1,226% increase in social mentions of PFLAG Canada during campaign period

PFLAG Canada is a grassroots not-for-profit that's created a utility with global application and impact.

Conversation activation across tourism offices (including New Zealand and Vancouver), politicians (Alberta MPP, Sandra Jansen) and celebrities (Tegan and Sara).

Partnership interest from major global travel and LGBTQ+ community brands.

All contributing to Destination Pride being the most shared and discussed communication platform in PFLAG's 45-year history.

Our Pride flag visualizations have been included in the London Design Museum's retrospective on graphic design and political messaging. The show, called, "Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008-18" runs until August 12, 2018.

Individualized creative:

Destination Pride uses location and search data to serve up individualized creative to each person who engages with the platform. Between a destination's score and its flag, there are literally millions of possible configurations of the data – each dependent on the user who's searching for it.

See the world:

This call to action frames the experience. It's an invitation to travel - and an explanation of the platform's core benefit: transparency.

Data gathering:

We identified six key metrics of acceptance: marriage equality, sexual activity law, gender identity protections, anti-discrimination laws, civil rights and liberties, and social media sentiment.

Our algorithm gathers country-, state- and city-level laws that govern these metrics from the LGBTQ+ knowledge base Equaldex. Next, it validates and gap-fills with data from Wikipedia. Finally, it pulls real-time social media sentiment from the analytics tool Netbase. Each bar is assigned a value, then averaged to an overall numerical score.

Data interpretation:

By combining hard legal data with soft social sentiment data, the platform provides a snapshot of on-the-ground conditions for both local LGBTQ+ communities and travellers.

Targeting: LGBTQ+ travellers across more than 92 countries. Ads ran in local languages, and were contextual to local events.

See the world:

This call to action frames the experience. It's an invitation to travel – and an explanation of the platform's core benefit: transparency.

As with many marginalized groups, the global LGBTQ+ community has been engaged in a long and ongoing struggle for equality. To a large extent, that struggle plays out across a country's laws, rights and cultural landscape. For example, marriage equality, adoption, blood donation, military service rights, even the rules surrounding gender assignment on government documentation - each can have a profound impact on a person's life. And each are governed by specific public policies and laws. This is a lot of data. And navigating it creates ongoing complexity.

From its work as a peer-to-peer not-for-profit supporting the LGBTQ+ community, PFLAG Canada knew that inequalities are both widespread and vary widely depending where you are.

Our brief: draw attention to these inequalities - and help the LGBTQ+ community navigate them.

Objectives:

Shine a light on global inequalities.

Engage global LGBTQ+ travellers.

Bring scale to PFLAG Canada's mandate.