Busting Bias On Sexuality | Absolut Love Letters
A LGBTQ ad from Australia connects deeply with Canadians. Why?
Bias
How can we demonstrate and galvanize support for the LGBTQ+ community?
Same sex marriage has been legal in Canada for more than 15 years. But does that mean we shouldn’t continue to be vocal about our support for the LGBTQ+ community?
In Australia, where same sex marriage was legalized only in 2017, Absolut Vodka created an ad that sought to demonstrate support for the LGBTQ+ community’s fight for marriage equality. Its Absolut Love Letters spot tapped into the concept of “silent supporters”: a majority of people supported marriage equality, but were not as vocal about their support on social media as those people who opposed same sex marriage. With their campaign, Absolut sought to change that.
Would this ad - which was from a different market (Australia) and addressing issues that Canadians would have faced more than a decade ago when their country legalized same sex marriage - resonate with Canadians? Would a regional phenomena transcend borders to connect with audiences?
Bias Busted
The answer is: yes.
Despite the focus on the Aussie LGBTQ experience - featuring Australian people with Australian accents, as well as using the Australian acronym LGBTIQ+ (as opposed to LGBTQ2S+ used in Canada) - the universal message of love and support resonates with Canadian audiences.
There also remains an understanding among Canadians that the LGBTQ+ community continues to fight for equality in many parts of the world and would benefit from vocal supporters. This message resonates with the audience.
The focus on vocal support and “making love louder” may prompt viewers to question their own digital/ social media activism and ask whether they are doing enough. In fact, looking at the second by second trace of this spot, we can see these moments of introspection. From seconds ~3 to 9 Connection (pink) is above Attention (yellow) indicating that viewers are resonating more deeply with the content on screen than they are paying attention to stimuli.
We’ve seen similar responses from Canadian audiences to international content, namely, the Spanish Lottery Commission’s holiday advertising. The Spanish Lottery Commission is focused on a market specific cultural phenomena (holiday lottery pools) and their ads use Spanish speaking actors forcing English speakers to read subtitles. However, like Absolut Love Letters, their content connects with Canadian audiences. This is because of their attachment to a universal theme and execution of this theme through genuine and authentic characters/actors.
The Context: Absolut’s roots in LGBTQ+ community
Absolut has been a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community for ages, spending over 31 million USD on marketing to the LGBTQ+ community in 1981 alone.[1] The company has supported countless PRIDE events and is well known for its prominent placement on earlier seasons of Ru Paul’s Drag Race.
Absolut Love Letters is an evolution of these efforts. Absolut partnered with LGBTQ+ groups in Australia, on the back of same-sex marriage legalization, to understand how to better support this community. As the ad communicates, most Aussies are “silent supporters”, meaning they do not express their acceptance or love for the community explicitly enough. This shortage of expressive supporters, as outlined in “The Make Love Louder Report”, can leave the community feeling isolated, left on their own to fight against negative voices in digital spaces[2]. To help in the fight, Absolut encourages allies and friends to write love letters to wash out the negative comments with positive ones.
What is most surprising about this spot is the fact that same sex marriage was legalized in Australia in late 2017, twelve years later than in Canada. This National acceptance of same-sex marriage will undoubtedly impact the social acceptance and the general sentiment towards same sex couples in the rest of the country in both public and private spaces. In the meantime, as outlined in this spot, the Australian LGBTQI+ community continues to battle against a negative minority online, while LGBTQI+ supporters tend to be silent. Yes, Canada continues to deal with discrimination and homophobia, but an ad like this for a Canadian market may seem disjointed. The fact that this spot performs so well for Canadian audiences shows the power of anchoring to a universal theme.
Busting Bias on Sexuality - What can we learn?
To connect with a wider audience, this spot:
Anchors to a universal theme (love, support, acceptance)
Cast real people/ real friends with real and visible emotional connection (this resonates with the audience)
Uses upbeat music and bright colour choices that pair well with the happiness and warmth emanating from the friends
Advertising that taps into universal themes have the potential to resonate across borders. Anchoring to universal love, friendship and acceptance and using real friends to communicate these key messages all work to engage Canadian audiences around a theme of support and celebration for LGBTQ+ community.
While Canadians may be twelve years ahead in terms of same sex legalization, there are numerous challenges that the LGBTQ+ community still faces in Canada. The concept of support and acceptance from the wider community resonates with the audience.
Additionally, the way Absolut communicates its message using upbeat music and bright colours is engaging; it matches the emotion conveyed by the happy friends introduced in the spot.
[1] https://marketingtherainbow.info/case%20studies/absolut.html
[2] https://www.absolut.com/globalassets/documents/abolut_mll_report_fa.pdf