by Jessica Payne
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered quite possibly the speech of her career yesterday in Geneva. The 30-minute address called on delegates gathered at the European headquarters of the United Nations to unite in the global fight against discrimination in the LGBT community. The Human Rights Day speech was thought to have been on Syria, but Clinton surprised attendees with the provocative step-change in topic.
Almost immediately, videos of the speech went viral. To date, a re-post of the transcript and video on the Huffington Post has garnered 10,000 likes on Facebook alone – shared eagerly among straight and LGBT audiences overnight. The speech has now been picked up by virtually every major news publication around the globe. Clinton’s speech was also trending yesterday on Twitter and the speech (and reposts) continue to garner views on YouTube.
Excerpt (source: Huffington Post):
‘When we see denials and abuses of human rights and fail to act, that sends the message to those deniers and abusers that they won’t suffer any consequences for their actions, and so they carry on. But when we do act, we send a powerful moral message.’ – US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
US pundits speculate whether or not this was a PR stunt – or if it will have any bearing at all – when considering the upcoming presidential election. Still, others criticise the foreign call-to-arms when it is well-known debate about gay marriage rights ‘back home’ continues.
Abroad, the dialogue is quite different. True, some countries will join the call to arms immediately while it will be a long slog for others. Still, if the lengthy standing ovation Clinton received on Tuesday is any indication, it is that countries outside of the western –sphere are listening. A very important first step for those wishing for their voices to be heard.
A full transcript of the speech and video can be found here.
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December 7th, 2011 No Comments »
Tags: Discrimination · Geneva · Hillary Clinton · Human Rights Day · LGBT · speech · White House
by Guido Schmitz
You may remember one of my posts from this summer which dealt with “Bauer sucht Frau” (Farmer wants a Wife) and the announcement that this fall for the first time a farmer is actually not looking for a wife but for a husband. Due to the nature of the (freak) show I expressed my concern that that two guys would end up as some kind of attraction in a weird cabinet of curiosity. But boy, was I wrong!
For almost six weeks now, every Tuesday morning follows the same ritual after arriving in the office: I have finally peeled myself out of the way too tight winter coat when I look at the faces of my colleagues filled with anticipation. This anticipation is all about the TV program of last night: Bauer sucht Frau.
So every Tuesday I tell my colleagues what I think of the latest episode and how the two performed. Each and every time I have to say: They are kind of cute together but every single straight couple on the show is sooo much more exciting and funny. Gay has turned out to be the new boring…at least as far as this show is concerned. But actually this boring has the most positive connotation possible!
Whereas the other farmers turned out to either suffer from a “slight” sociopathic syndrome driving the potentials wives closer to insanity from episode to episode or suffer from rather odd looks making you ask why plastic surgery is all about silicon and not complete facial re-dos, our two gays have decent manners and are blessed with good looks. They are smart and funny and Philip the stablehand has a better relationship with his parents than any mom could wish for.
I would not necessarily suggest the show to be awarded with an LGBT integration award. But so far I really do have the impression that the show raises awareness for the normality of gay (love) life and that it can be found everywhere in every social context.
The key question everybody working in PR faces everyday is: How do I reach my target audience best. Many LGBT awareness campaigns in past years have clearly suffered from deficits in really reaching those people who need some kind of extra lessons when it comes to acceptance of LGBT individuals. Often they got stuck in media which are normally consumed by people who tend to be already rather LGBT-friendly. However, the TV station which broadcasts “Bauer sucht Frau”, is watched by pretty much everybody in Germany and is actually particularly strong in parts of the society with a below average educational level, a group with is less often exposed to LGBT content.
So to stay in PR terms: the Advertising Value Equivalency for positive LGBT coverage in “Bauer sucht Frau” is astronomical.
What do you think? Is a format like “Bauer sucht Frau” the right channel to spread our message or would you say that the format is not the right way to create a wider acceptance for LGBT individuals? After all, you could still argue that it may be true that among the blind the one-eyed man is king but that he still suffers from a deficit.
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November 23rd, 2011 No Comments »
by Vera González
A recent posthumous tribute was held for Christian Iván Sánchez Venancio, an advocate for sexual diversity rights who was killed this past July 23 in his Mexico City apartment.
During the ceremony, Christian’s most relevant achievements were outlined, namely for promoting the creation of the Mexico City Sexual Diversity Coordination, and for promoting the approval of legislation related to Coexistence Societies and same sex marriages, valid for the country’s capital city.
Christian Sánchez was a member of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) political party, the political organization of leftist ideology currently governing Mexico City. The PRD has been quite supportive of the causes and rights of Mexico’s LGBT community. Through Luis Antonio Torres Osorno, a member of the city’s Sexual Diversity Coordination for the PRD, the party called for the implementation of an awareness campaign at a national, state, and municipal level, particularly on the social media fronts, to help curb discrimination against the LGBT community. He also called on authorities to end hate crimes resulting from homophobia, transphobia, and lesbophobia, in addition to calling for the creation of specialized prosecution offices to fight these crimes.
Several weeks ago, the LGBT community and Christian’s brother, Daniel Juárez Venancio, organized a National March Against Hate Crimes caused by homophobia, and further, any other hate and discrimination crimes against minorities.
On the Mexican LGBT obituary on Facebook, Christian also received special recognition. This is an open site for Mexico’s LGBT community to offer special remembrance to their friends, family members, and other well-known individuals who have passed away and somehow supported our community during their life.
Despite the significant progress registered in Mexico City, situations as this one cast a shadow over greater openness and coexistence of the citizens in this great metropolitan area; saddening the great majority of those of us who are part of it. I will continue informing on the developments towards this local government promoted campaign against homophobia.
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September 20th, 2011 No Comments »
by Jessica Payne
The National Institute of Mental Health will provide a $2.8 million grant to New York University and the University of Arizona to study the causes behind the suicide risks for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth. The three-year study will follow more than 1,000 LGBT youth aged 15 to 21 in three metropolitan areas in the US.
The study will be led by Arnold Grossman, a professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and co-investigator Stephen Russell, Distinguished Professor and Endowed Chair and Director of the Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, & Families at the University of Arizona’s Norton School of Family and Consumer Studies.
“The knowledge we generate will allow us to more accurately assess LGBT youth at risk for suicidal behaviours, identify those risk factors that can be diminished at various developmental stages, and create preventive messaging and interventions that simultaneously increase protective factors, such as feeling more hopeful about the future, and reduce risk factors,” says Russell.
Full release here.
It’s likely the study will yield disturbing data around the increase of negative social phenomena such as cyber-bullying, but hopeful it will reveal an increase in awareness among youth of anti-hate campaigns like The Trevor Project. Anti-Hate campaigns continue to thrive, backed by politicians, sports icons and celebrities – people youth look up to as mentors. Just last week, Hollywood showed its support for Suicide Prevention Week by launching a series of anti-hate PSAs featuring Lilly Tomlin, Ricky Martin and Mariska Hargitay.
Since launch, the WeGiveADamn.org project has already become a vibrant community to more than 84,000 members and features the PSAs, blogs, testimonials and merchandise to help raise funds. Its Facebook, YouTube and Twitter channels area already drawing in droves numbering in the hundreds of thousands. This is critical given youth are among the highest in terms of digital adoption and use.
There’s little doubt the study will be groundbreaking and hopefully pave the way for more organizations – and people – to get involved and potentially save lives.
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September 13th, 2011 No Comments »
Tags: digital adoption · LGBT · NYU U of Arizona · research · study · suicide · youth
by Guido Schmitz
Whenever I try to find inspiration for my next blog entry, the first thing I do is I google for LGBT TV commercials or other marketing activities relevant to the LGBT community. My experience is that these commercials mirror the thinking of a society quit well most of the time. You can almost be certain that IKEA is one of the companies that come up on Google each and every time. About a year ago I posted about an IKEA TV commercial which was aired in Austria. Back then there was a controversy if the commercial discriminated against LGBT individuals unintentionally. My latest discovery of LGBT communication by the Swedish home-center is an advertisement which was taken out in Italy when IKEA opened a new store in Catania, located in Italy’s conservative south.
The ad, titled “We are open for all families”, caused a bit of an uproar among some conservative publications. Especially “Il Giornale” complained about the advertisement. Surprisingly enough they did not complain directly about two guys holding hands and going shopping together. Instead they took the detour and accused IKEA to be on an ideological mission to promote “social equality” by offering their products at low prices. (No, this is not a typo or a joke) It was widely believed that “social equality” did really refer to equal rights for the LGBT community. “Il Giornale” even went so far to actually complain about a new kind of Swedish imperialism forcing their values on other societies.
Even if “Il Giornale” was really concerned that IKEA’s goal is to create social equality or if that was just to cover up for their homophobia does not matter a great deal in this conext. Rather it is a prime example of how the interaction of international companies with consumers runs danger to be at conflict with local values and thinking. Companies have to be aware that local sentiments might be quite different to their local environment, in this case Sweden opposed to Italy. IKEA especially should be aware of this challenge because they have experiences such cases many times before. Already in 1994, the company took out a TV commercial in the US which showed a gay couple going shopping together. Eventually the spot led to a call for boycott and even a bomb threat against the company. In 2008, the IKEA catalogue caused irritation among the conservatives in Poland because two men were sitting together at a table eating their dinner.
In today’s globalized world it can be quite challenging to find the right tonality for the many different local audiences. Advertisers know for a long time that they have to tweak campaigns to local needs or create something new altogether because an idea which works in one market does not necessarily work in another equally well. With regard to public relations this can be even more challenging nowadays. More than ever companies have to show their colors and commit themselves to fundamental values and beliefs, e.g. climate protection. The challenge is that fundamental values cannot (easily) be tweaked for certain markets. Human rights are human rights and the same holds true for equal rights of course. Attempts to add shades of grey in the corporate communications usually take no good ending. The only solution is in most cases avoiding any kind of proactive communication of your values in certain markets altogether.
Given their history, IKEA know quite well that its commercials often provoke negative reaction in mostly conservative parts of the world. So the question really is if it is ok for companies to spread their beliefs which are inspired by the values of home markets to other markets? Should companies with a global like IKEA function as ambassador for the LGBT community?
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August 26th, 2011 No Comments »
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