Creating dimension in Pride campaigns: ZMS x GAP
Creating dimension in Pride campaigns: ZMS x GAP
How Zalando Marketing Services created a truly inclusive campaign for GAP
How Zalando Marketing Services created a truly inclusive campaign for GAP
Pride has become a time where brands show their support for the LGBTQIA+ community. This is a good opportunity to tell stories that resonate with a specific audience or that spotlight issues that are important to people with an underrepresented gender, sexual orientation, or identity expression. However, there is also a danger of exclusion, tokenism, and general tone-deafness when telling these stories.
Zalando Marketing Services has been creating campaigns centered around diversity for several years now, helping brands find messages that speak directly to the Zalando audience. The American clothing brand GAP first worked with ZMS in 2021 to translate their support of their employees and communities in the US to a German audience. Building on this work, the brand returned in 2022 to create a campaign with Zalando and the video curation site Nowness, spotlighting three filmmakers. Adam Munnings, Zoey Lee, and Harun Güler told three different stories about family, chosen family, breaking cultural norms, and redefining beauty. Alina Hoyne, Senior Lead Copywriter on the project, shares some of the best practices and learnings that helped her team to create a 2022 Pride campaign for GAP in Germany through an intersectional lens.
1. Look for existing structures and communities that organically go beyond one dimension of diversity
“One of the things we did when looking for talent was to work with a talent scout who was heavily involved in the ballroom community. We also went to universities that had film director programs, which meant talent was coming from major cities around the country. We got 16 applications and then we narrowed this down to three directors.”
The impulse was to look for someone with a very deep connection to the community. Because of the talent scout’s connection to the ballroom community in Germany, we were able to access talent that was comparatively diverse to the country’s population, as ballroom spaces were originally created by BPOC (Black and People of Color). It was part of our aim to have a wider diversity net, which helped to offset the fact that most directors that go through regular school systems tend to be white. This gave us a range of voices.`”
2. Involve the community you address at an early stage and throughout the process
“We worked with Zalando’s Employee Resource Group (ERG) from an early stage. We checked with them on the original concepts during the pitch phase to make sure that all communications were using language that was as inclusive as possible. For instance, there was a question around whether or not “queer” was the right term to be using in a callout to directors, because while it is sometimes used as an umbrella term, it might feel exclusive. It is only one of the letters of the LGBTQIA+ acronym and some people may not identify as a “queer director.” We just didn’t want to exclude anyone in that way. The ERG was able to help us with important things to make the campaign inclusive and respectful.`”
3. Focus on strong storytelling instead of tokenism
“Once we had done our initial talent scouting, we had to try to take all other criteria out of the equation, except for the application and the ability for a possible candidate to make a film in the relatively short time period. We put together a list of five people that we were convinced could do this. In a different setup, if we were really steering the production, for example, there were other people that we may have chosen. We had to make decisions based on the candidates’ ability to independently tell their stories. Another focus point was making sure that the films were all different from each other. We got some that were similar to other ones, but it was clear which ones were stronger in telling a particular story. You always have to put the story first.”
4. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you did everything perfectly
“In retrospect, we could have done the campaign in German and English instead of just in English. Since the team normally works in English to reach a more international audience, we chose to only go for one language. But this is an opportunity for the future.”
