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Launching the City Ratings Report 2022 on Cities LGBTQ+ Inclusion
  • Partner: Open For Business
  • Sector: Social Justice – LGBTQ+ Inclusivity
  • Location: Global

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  • Advocacy & Influence
  • Marketing, PR & Social Media
  • Purpose Advertising & Campaigns

Open For Business is a response by a number of leading global businesses to the growing backlash against LGBTQ+ inclusion in many parts of the world.

Every two years, Open For Business publish their City Ratings Report, assessing cities around the world on criteria across inclusion and economic performance, highlighting that the most economically successful cities in the world are also some of the most inclusive.

8 million
impressions on the social campaign
700,000
website views and 400,000 unique clicks during the two week launch period
12 featured articles
in 7 countries, raising the profile of the City Ratings worldwide

The challenge

Having previously had success communicating with the private sector, Open For Business wanted support in engaging the LGBTQ+ community and activists from around the world with the City Ratings, including a campaign that would visually tell a story that could appeal to both audiences.

The solution

Together with Open For Business, we created Open Cities Prosper – a digital campaign aimed to speak to business leaders, political leaders at the local and national level, in addition to the LGBTQ+ community. The campaign’s name signifies the economic prosperity that LGBTQ+ inclusivity can bring to cities. We creatively evolved the Open For Business visual identity and designed digital assets that led both old and new audiences to read through the City Ratings and put pressure on their local governments.

Our tools to create solutions:

We introduced the colourful building blocks into photos of the cities featured in the City Ratings report, showing how LGBTQ+ inclusivity brings about diversity and innovation in cities. We played with the idea of building blocks stacking upwards and outwards - a nod to how some cities in the City Ratings are sliding backwards since the last report, some are moving forward, and some continue to grow.
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Storytelling with shapes
  • Storytelling with shapes
    We weaved the building blocks into images of cities that had high and low city ratings. Cities that rated higher on the report demonstrated more colourful growth versus low rated cities which had less vibrant building blocks.

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We weaved the building blocks into images of cities that had high and low city ratings. Cities that rated higher on the report demonstrated more colourful growth versus low rated cities which had less vibrant building blocks.
Getting the world talking

With the launch of the campaign, Open For Business took to Amsterdam, the world’s most open for business city, for a series of talks and events celebrating the 2022 report. The two-week campaign sparked online conversations across the globe, engaging governments in Australia, media outlets in Europe and homophobes on the internet.

On the launch of the campaign, publications such as Openly featured the campaign on their socials and appeared as a dedicated Twitter thread on For You pages. Among the campaigns targeting policy workers, the most engaged audiences were governments in Perth, Tallinn and Amsterdam.
Media features
  • Media features
    The campaign was picked up on media outlets, including local press for cities featured in the City Ratings report.

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The campaign was picked up on media outlets, including local press for cities featured in the City Ratings report.
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Open cities open conversations
The campaign sparked avid conversation across social channels drawing fierce critics and supporters alike. LGBTQ+ audiences from some of the highest rated open cities expressed pride for living in inclusive communities.
Open cities open conversations
The campaign sparked avid conversation across social channels drawing fierce critics and supporters alike. LGBTQ+ audiences from some of the highest rated open cities expressed pride for living in inclusive communities.

In the campaign’s two week run, it significantly boosted the City Ratings report’s visibility gaining over 8 million impressions and 400,000 unique clicks and 700,000 views of the campaign’s landing page.

Working towards SDG goal