Revealed: Outvertising's new Council

Today we’re announcing the formation of the Outvertising Council. Led by its Chair, Lord Black of Brentwood (Guy Black), the Council will guide us as we work to make advertising and marketing completely LGBTQ+ inclusive.  Guy was the first out gay Conservative peer to sit in the House of Lords and has campaigned on a range of LGBTQ+ issues including equal marriage, gay conversion therapy and criminalisation of homosexuality in the Commonwealth. He was recognised by Pink News as Peer of the Year for his contribution to LGBTQ+ issues in Parliament. He is Deputy Chairman of the Telegraph Group.

“Outvertising’s aim is to ensure that UK advertising is completely LGBTQ+ inclusive. I see positive signs in our advertising output and in our workplaces, but there is still much work to be done. I look forward to working with the team and with the Council on the challenges ahead.”
— Lord Black

Joining Lord Black are Jane Luca, Director of Public Affairs at ITV; Diana Tickell, CEO of NABS; Pedro Pina, VP and Head of YouTube, EMEA; Phyll Opoku-Gyimah, “Lady Phyll”, Executive Director of the Kaleidoscope Trust and Co-Founder of UK Black Pride; Adah Parris, Chair, Mental Health First Aid England; Bobbi Pickard, CEO of Trans in the City; Sarah Garrett MBE, CEO of SPM Group; and Leng Montgomery, Consultant.

The Outvertising Council provides governance and strategic guidance to the voluntary organisation, and the full Council membership has also been announced today, comprising LGBTQ+ leaders and allies.

LGBTQ+ and ally volunteers needed

Outvertising, UK advertising’s LGBTQ+ advocacy group is looking for volunteers to join the team.

Entirely volunteer-run, Outvertising’s purpose is to make UK advertising and marketing completely LGBTQ+ inclusive. We do that by providing free resources to drive LGBTQ+ belonging and inclusion in our workplaces, and with free insights and tools to encourage LGBTQ+ inclusion in advertising. Join us and we promise networking, personal and professional development, and friendship.


We have three important vacancies within the day-to-day management team:

Co-Director of Communications

You will be jointly responsible for the organisation’s communications including our social presence and our member e-mails. This is a hands-on role.

Co-Director of Insight

You will be jointly responsible for developing the organisation’s insight tools and resources that encourage brands and their creative and media partners to be more LGBTQ+ inclusive in their advertising.

Corporate Secretary 

You will be jointly responsible for administering the regulatory and legal aspects of the organisation, which is a company limited by guarantee.  

If you’re interested in volunteering for any of the above roles, just get in touch with us at info@outvertising.org and we can have a chat. You’ll be joining a friendly and enthusiastic team of folk who have day jobs in marketing and advertising and who are passionate about inclusion.


Announcing the winners of the Outvertising Awards 2021

After an incredibly inspiring judging session we are proud to announce the winners of this year’s Outvertising Awards, as revealed at Outvertising Live. Industry leaders, LGBTQ+ professionals and allies came together on Thursday 4 November to celebrate the work that has helped advertising and marketing move forward over the last 12 months.


The winners are below:

🔗 Partnership of the Year 

This award recognises the best campaign or activation delivered through a meaningful partnership with a media owner or other commercial partner.

🏆 Winner: Skittles & Gay Times – Recolour The Rainbow

A recoloured archive image of a man holding a microphone addressing a crowd at a LGBTQ+ rights demonstration, with a mix of couples embracing in the background

🖼 Campaign of the Year

🏆 Winner: TUC (Trades Union Congress) & Sam Nicklin - Every Trans Person Should Join a Union

🏳️‍🌈 Pride Award

This award recognises best-in-class activations at or around Pride events.

This includes sponsorships, on the ground activity, or specifically focused content partnerships.

🏆 Winner: LEGO - Everyone Is Awesome

🌀 Reimagine Award - Best LGBTQ+ Reinvention of an Existing Campaign or Brand

In partnership with One Minute Briefs this prize recognises creative minds that have thought outside the box and hypothetically reimagined advertising from brands so that it has more LGBTQ+ inclusive insights & execution.

🏆 Winner: Gary Lewis @garydoescopy

⏩ Accelerator Award - Inspiring the Creation of New Inclusive Advertising

Supported by GSK, this award is designed to build inclusive creative muscles and muscle memory within the creative community, and to lead to the creation of a new LGBTQ+ advertising campaign that will run to a broad online audience of millions of consumers.

🏆 Winner: Preen

You can see their response in full and follow the progress of the campaign here.

⭐️ Brand of the Year

This brand will have unequivocally demonstrated that: it is committed to the appropriate and realistic representation of LGBTQ+ people; LGBTQ+ representation is part of its DNA, and linked to the achievement of its commercial goals; it has or uses processes to ensure that representation is relevant to its audiences.

🏆 Winner: MasterCard and McCann New York – TrueName