The PinkNews Awards is a space where for many years LGBTQIA+ people have come together to celebrate our progress as a movement.
Outvertising is proud to have been nominated this year, in part, for our successful campaigning during Pride Month urging brands to stand proudly behind their Pride campaigns during a year where they have been met with coordinated attacks. Even more so as our work is delivered by a group of volunteers who work with organisations large and small to achieve our mission to make the marketing and advertising industry completely LGBTQIA+ inclusive. We do this through supporting the queer community working in the sector, and by encouraging better, and more authentic representation of our community in the output of the industry.
Fossil Free Pride has a right to protest. As a wider movement that is born from protest we should respect that by listening to the argument they are making and the action they are seeking. Every industry and every business has a role to play in ensuring we invest in the tools, talent and thinking that pushes towards a sustainable future.
As an organisation, we encourage advertisers and agencies to act as “good corporate citizens” through inclusion, representation and policy. We hold ourselves accountable in the same way, and being aware of our impact on and contribution to the climate emergency makes up an important part of that. Of course, we encourage those we work with to do the same. For our own Outvertising events, we do not accept sponsorship from organisations that Fossil Free Pride have recommended avoiding. Specifically, those fossil fuel corporations listed in the Carbon Underground 200 and those that feature on the latest Banking on Climate Chaos report.
It should be noted that it has become harder to develop sponsorships for LGBTQIA+ events this year. We must acknowledge that there is a nervousness from organisations to align publicly with and advocate for our community due to the rise in anti-trans sentiment in particular. We’re currently experiencing this with our own event taking place next month.
As a volunteer organisation we have to stay laser focused on our mission and purpose. To this end, we cannot police everyone that our partners work with, or investigate the depth of the reasoning behind those partnerships. But we have spoken with both Fossil Free Pride and PinkNews prior to making this statement and have encouraged dialogue.
We hope that PinkNews will be listening to Fossil Free Pride’s message and work hard to do what is right and important.
As ever, our mission stays the same: to make the UK marketing and advertising industry completely LGBTQIA+ inclusive. And we look forward to tonight’s event.