Branded content agency Raw London has taken home the top prize in this year’s Pride Brand Makeover with a reimagined version of Teenage Cancer Trust’s Gamer Girl ad – which originally depicts a teen’s struggle with her cancer.
The free-to-enter competition asks adland to reinvent a mainstream ad campaign for a LGBT+ audience, to highlight the debate around diversity and inclusion in marketing.
Raw London remade the ad for Mermaids UK, the support agency for gender diverse and transgender youngsters and their families. The ad sees a teen playing a video game of her life, in which her enemies are made up of bullies, unsupportive family members and the internal struggle of a trans person.
“There is often a perception among open minded people that LGBT+ acceptance is no longer a problem, but that is very much not the case. A third of LGBT people aren’t out at work, while we are still seeing public examples of young people being abusive towards the LGBT community,” said Mark Runacus, president of PrideAM.
“Advertising has the ability to develop positive role models in everybody’s lives and make a significant difference to the attitude of the general public. Through this competition we hope to shine a light on the issue and inspire other brands to pay more consideration to addressing LGBT+ issues, or to feature members of the LGBT+ community in their everyday work.”
The agency won £100,000 of inventory from Gay Times, and will split a further $350,000 of ad inventory from YouTube with the other four finalists: adam&eveDDB, Engine, Crispin Porter + Bogusky and McCann London.
