H&M has taken the road less travelled in honour of this Pride month through the launch of the “Beyond the Rainbow” interactive campaign in support of the LGBTQIA+ community that can be fully experienced through a newly developed web app made especially for the occasion.
The campaign features people from different continents, age, gender and sexual orientation, as they share their own inspiring, personal stories ‘from the other side of the rainbow’ and support the core values of diversity, equality and transparency which are the heart of Pride. The stories will touch on these individuals’ experience of love and hate, of growing up and coming out, of finding true love wherever and whoever you are and celebrating everyone’s right to be themselves.
Fronting the campaign is, among others, American actress and singer Mj Rodriguez (Michaela Jae Rodriguez), Mexican influencer Héctor Trejo, Danish actor, model and DJ Sus Wilkins and Chella Man, American artist, actor and activist.
“It’s not to wave around to show like ‘We’re here’, it’s ‘Look what we fought for’. We’re the ones who created our own liberation. The Pride flag is beautiful, but I’m not sure a lot of people understand how beautiful, I’m not just talking about the colours, it’s what’s beyond them”, said Mj Rodriguez.
Through a web-based scanner on their smartphones, users are taken to the “Beyond the Rainbow” landing page where true stories from diverse individuals in the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as watch videos, utilize Instagram filters and share their own Pride stories on social media. Previously, image recognition technology has never been able to recognize color, making this innovation the first of its kind.
In conjunction with The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQIA+ youth, H&M will match donations made to Trevor during a special Match Campaign in June. Through doing so, H&M will help Trevor raise additional funds.
“I am very proud of the way this campaign brings together the LGBTQIA+ community and tells all these different but so important stories of pride. It connects directly to our core values and encapsulates our social vision to enable everyone at H&M and beyond to live the life they want, express who they are and to be the best of themselves”, commented Pascal Brun, Global Sustainability Manager, H&M.
Source: H&M