Creative Equals, Outvertising, Smarty Pants, The Unmistakables and Utopia announce the launch of a new collective, Allies Coming Out for Trans+ (ACT+), which seeks to encourage support of the trans+ community amongst Marketing and Communications leaders. The collective will join forces to provide positivity as well as practical and tangible ways that leaders in the industry can come forward as allies in the election year.
This comes at a time of a record breaking number of hate crimes against trans+ people in England and Wales according to the Home Office. A recent report recognised that “transgender issues have been heavily discussed by politicians, the media and on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in these offenses, or more awareness in the police in the identification and recording of these crimes.”. This is an even more important task following Ofcom Chairman Michael Grade’s address to the industry that we must ‘get ahead of the harm’ and make ‘trust and safety a priority’, at the Lead Conference last month.
Outvertising's Consumer Research report found that 60% LGBTQIA+ people in the UK are more likely to say that brands should express their views on political or social issues, and 64% say they are more likely to reject a brand if its views are not aligned with their own. 50% of non-LGBTQIA+ people say the same. More importantly, the majority of people say they are "not prejudiced" toward transgender people. And critically, marketers are aligned: three in four say the Bud Light fallout didn’t change their attitude towards purpose, according to the latest Contagious Radar report.
Companies that have joined the collective include Bloom, Cannes Lions, Contagious, D&AD, Join Our Table, Pocc, Reckitt Benckiser, SheSays, Trans in the City, Trans+ Solidarity Alliance, YouTube, WACL, WARC and WPP Unite. The executive briefing will gather agency and brand leaders including WPP and Google in an evening of discussion, including interrogating the media being funded to end ‘dirty attention’, specifically advocating for the divestment from disinformation and sensationalism, and increasing representation in the industry’s creative output.