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Case Study
Inclusion & Diversity

GLAAD Media Awards: Visible and virtual

Learn how Accenture enabled change by offering our experienced talent and digital capabilities to help create the first virtual GLAAD Media Awards.

Challenge

GLAAD, headquartered in the USA, is the world’s leading LGBTQ media advocacy organization. Beginning in 1990, the GLAAD Media Awards is today the most visible annual LGBTQ awards show—promoting acceptance and reaching audiences across the world.

Due to the global pandemic, many LGBTQ people are forced to isolate in homes that may not be accepting. For many, seeing the LGBTQ community represented in the media is now even more vital.

With COVID-19 disrupting GLAAD’s normal in-person and broadcast awards shows, GLAAD was looking for new corporate sponsors to help as they pivoted to a live virtual event.

What Accenture did

In our first effort of its kind, we collaborated with GLAAD as its Digital Experience Partner.

We helped take the 31st Annual GLAAD Media Awards virtual by embedding a small team from Accenture Interactive, ?What If! and our Marketing + Communications teams into GLAAD. We invested in a dual path of support to help empower the organization to create its first-ever digital media awards by:

  • Enlisting a cross-team panel of experts to advise GLAAD leadership throughout event planning.
  • Developing and supporting event social promotion and live engagement across platforms.

Accenture recommended positioning the event on social in a fun, purposeful way to drive viewership and interactivity with the live-stream. We also set out to raise awareness of GLAAD’s mission and highlight the organization’s value during this moment in history by including its activism and historical impact in messaging.

“This is our first collaboration of its kind. We are so proud to have been able to make an enormous impact in such a short period of time – while gaining a mutually beneficial partnership to help LGBTQ visibility and acceptance.”

— MARCO ZIEGLER, Senior Managing Director & Global Pride Network Executive Sponsor

People and culture

Our team was excited and motivated to work on this and be part of the GLAAD organizing team in planning and executing the digital strategy, channels and enhancements. In the process, we formed an incredibly close relationship with GLAAD – in a way that could not be achieved by a traditional sponsor role – and have engaged on a long-term partnership strategy to continue to make an impact.

Image courtesy of GLAAD

Value delivered

The 31st GLAAD Media Awards was broadcast live July 30 on You Tube and Facebook channels, featuring Dolly Parton, Rachel Maddow, the cast of Pose, Dan Levy of Schitt’s Creek and Broadway star Ben Platt and Chloe X Halle.

Beautifully produced, it generated enormous social engagement and viewership. The team delivered an enormous impact for GLAAD through garnering more than 500 million social impressions, 1.3 million viewers across channels and overall 1.7 billion media impressions.

“I can’t begin to express how exciting it is for our entire team to have forged what is a smart, strategic, and long-term partnership with Accenture.”

— GWENDOLYN POINTER, Executive Vice President, GLAAD Media Institute

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