Pride in London hails innovation of #FreedomTo at business summit

Pride in London chairperson Michael Salter has hailed the success of Pride’s first ever ad campaign earlier this year.

Mr Salter – who is also David Cameorn’s Senior Broadcast Adviser – was speaking at the Out on the Streets LGBT leadership summit, which is taking place today at Deutsche Bank in London.

Addressing the business leaders at the event, he joked: “[Pride] costs about £600,000 to run every year, we have to raise that from scratch – so there’s a little plea for your support.”

He continued: “Pride is a way of campaigning. That could be campaigning for legal change around the world, or it could be a way of promoting – you as a charity promoting yourselves, or you as a business promoting yourselves.

“One of the big innovations this year was our first ever advertising campaign, #FreedomTo. It caught the imagination, there was a great chance for people to participate.

“The campaign was shown on London buses, digital escalators, and cross track projection on the tube.

“It was freedom to celebrate, it was freedom to say something positive, it was freedom to be proud of your granddaughter.”

Sara Bennison of Barclays, which backed the #FreedomTo campaign, added: “All the people featured in these ads are people who work for Barclays… I didn’t realise until Michael said to me, this is the first ad that a major brand’s done featuring someone who’s transgender.

“It hadn’t dawned on me that this was seen as something so big and bold.”

“The first year we were sponsoring we did it in quite a beige way – put the logo there and that was it.

“This year, we went more rainbow than beige, I think it’s fair to say.”

• Dec 01 2023

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