To spread its support of LGBTIQ+ inclusion beyond Sydney’s Oxford Street pride parade-route, ANZ Bank leveraged a unique cultural insight and data point to target and engage an entirely new audience: those in far flung regional towns.

ANZ’s ‘Signs of Love’ inspired the targeted regional LGBTIQ+ audience to rally behind the campaign on social and in local media (with publications we’d never even heard of before, talking and writing about the campaign). One community even staged their own mini Mardi Gras flash mob around their local sign.

As principal partner of Sydney’s Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, ANZ Bank has firmly established itself as a strong supporter of the LGBTIQ+ community through its annual Mardi Gras campaigns.

In 2018, Sydney Mardi Gras celebrated Australia’s achievement of marriage equality and 40 years of LGBTIQ+ rights in Australia.

Come 2019, sitting inside the Sydney Mardi Gras ‘pride-bubble’ (as we termed it), you could be forgiven for thinking the ‘job was done’ for LGBTIQ+ equality and there was nought left to do but embrace the celebration.

But that would have been naive.

Our campaign objective was to reinforce ANZ’s support for diversity and inclusion by broadening awareness for ANZ’s sponsorship of Mardi Gras to untapped audiences. Acknowledging that while we’d come a long way in regards to LGBTIQ+ rights, our brief was to focus on ‘the more to be done’.

Discovering Oxford Street in Sydney (the parade-route) was one of 123 Oxford Streets around Australia, our idea was to spread a little Mardi Gras love to LGBTIQ+ individuals living away from the festival’s ‘pride-bubble’ - many of whom felt isolated and vulnerable.

‘Signs of Love’ saw the ambitious, overnight metamorphosis of ‘other’ Oxford Streets into beacons of pride and inclusion. In country towns across Australia, Oxford Street signs were transformed into shimmering, 3D sculptures, paying homage to familiar LGBTIQ+ icons, including:

‘We’re Not in Sydney Toto’ - an iconic rainbow

‘Eternal Flame’- celebrating marriage equality

‘Coming-Out’, - a unicorn ‘coming out’ in the bush

“Pink FlaminGo-Go’ - loved-up flamingo sailors

‘Love-is-Love’ - a lovestruck heart

‘‘I’m Spinning Around’ - tribute to gay icon Kylie Minogue’s song by the same name

‘Turn the Party’ - a glittering winged stiletto

And a giant 123-sign Sydney sculpture pointing towards every other Oxford Street.

Our campaign strategy started with audience research to understand what LGBTIQ+ issue required ANZ’s rally for an equal future.

Interviewing key members of the rural community, we heard story after story of the isolation and vulnerability felt “growing up gay in the bush”. Exploring this further in commissioned quantitative research, we found 84% of LGBTIQ+ felt there were parts of Australia where it was unsafe to be themselves. We had our new audience, and our new rally.

We needed to reach LGBTIQ+ individuals outside Sydney and share the Mardi Gras love in their communities (both literally and online).

To maximise impact (and budget), we installed a hero sign in each state.

A reconnaissance of 123 towns simply wasn’t feasible, so we turned to Google street-view , who in an agency world-first recorded new footage for our signs to live-on indefinitely, providing live 360-viewing access for all the world to see.

Multiple installation and production teams were dispersed far-and-wide for a simultaneous overnight installation.

On the same morning, we put out a social video to share the story.

In an effort to encourage our new audience to spread the idea, we created ANZ branded giphy stickers inviting Oxford Streets the world-over to join-in. This enabled people to virtually dress up their street sign in Mardi Gras style, then share the results. A promoted Instagram Story showed people how to grab the stickers and create their very own ‘Sign of love’.

Regional LGBTIQ+ audiences rallied behind the campaign on social and in local media (with publications we’d never even heard of before talking and writing about the campaign)

One community even staged their own Mardi Gras flash mob around their local sign! But the story of “Auntie Cece”, from the country-town of Mittagong is our proudest result. When Mittagong’s sign was vandalised, Cece took to social media to speak out against the hateful act, coming out as transgender.

The campaign took the ANZ Mardi Gras sponsorship to new, hard-to-find audiences

-Delivering 239 million impressions (7.7 million within regional publications)

-Growing the awareness of ANZ’s Mardi Gras sponsorship efforts outside of Sydney by 78%

-Successfully amplified ANZ’s inclusive reputation by 25%

-And our custom Giphy stickers have been accessed 10 million times, resulting in countless custom Signs of Love shared with friends and families.

This campaign was specifically designed to target the LGBTIQ+ community living in rural and regional towns across Australia.

ANZ Bank, was a firmly established advocate for inclusion and sponsor of the country’s largest pride festival. With branches all around Australia, ANZ saw the unique opportunity through its Mardi Gras partnership to take a meaningful message to its regional customer-base and drive awareness of the need for greater LGBTIQ+ inclusion.