The Brief
Ralph Lauren wanted to celebrate Pride, inclusively and in a way that reflected its heritage and luxury positioning.
The Approach
Ralph Lauren has a vast global audience. As with any audience of this scale, there will be a varying level of understanding of the LGBTQ+ community so we treated this content as an opportunity for education.
With Ralph Lauren, we wanted to recognise how storytelling is the earliest form of education: it acts as an entry point to different perspectives and gives us the opportunity to learn from others’ experiences. This in turn can form, strengthen or challenge our own opinions and values.
The Creative
Acknowledging the power of storytelling during Pride, we chose to share love stories from the LGBTQ+ community in collaboration with Ralph Lauren. This was with the intention of educating an expansive audience, but also to counteract the fact that, historically, most love stories have excluded the LGBTQ+ community.
The Stories
In total, we shared three different queer love stories. Each one focused on a different type of love: self-love, romantic love and platonic love. To do this, we profiled Tristam, Robert, Chloe, Ebun and June – all incredible individuals with unique perspectives.
Robert and Tristam met in 1994 in a chance encounter at the theatre. The couple came from “different worlds; Robert works as a portrait photographer, while Tristram is a scientist” but they quickly found commonalities which initiated a life-long relationship built on mutual respect and support.
Chloe and Ebun are an example of the power of platonic love, especially within the trans community. On the day, Chloe shared that “because we have certain layered, marginalised identities, we're able to hold even more capacity for love for and understanding of others”. Ebun added, “There's an understanding of, not just the kind of things that we face in the world, but also how those things make us process stuff, so we have a lot more grace for each other than other people.”
From researching his familial history as a first-generation immigrant to his trans experience and work as an artist and creative, June Lam’s story is one of self-love.
He shares that self-love can be found from within, and it links to seeing “the immense lineage” he has in terms of both “transness and cultural lineage as a Chinese Vietnamese immigrant person”.
The Content
These stories were executed in a variety of formats: still images, short-form videos and in-depth written articles. All of these assets were shared across British Vogue and Ralph Lauren.
All of this content was executed by talent from within the LGBTQ+ community, from our photographer to our writer.
All of these assets were shared across British Vogue and Ralph Lauren. All of this content was executed by talent from within the LGBTQ+ community, from our photographer to our writer.
This campaign exceeded KPIs and industry standards. Notably, the average dwell time was almost two and a half minutes – a 235% increase on the industry benchmark. The native article gained 451% more views than guaranteed. Most importantly, the collaboration provided an opportunity for celebrating those within the queer community while enlightening those outside it.
The content went on to live on Ralph Lauren’s channels and through further content.
