For HBO Max’s Human By Orientation PRIDE 2021 campaign, we were dedicated to growing our presence on social, yielding substantial press coverage and impressions, driving customers to the HBO Max streaming platform, and further solidifying Human By Orientation as the authority on queer culture - and HBO Max as the premier home for queer content. Across everything, we aimed to authentically engage our community and create content that genuinely helped them celebrate Pride 2021 from anywhere in the world.
We aimed to surpass our metrics from our first digital Pride campaign in 2020:
Go from one custom hosting website (HumanByOrientation.com) to universal access to Pride content across social media and HBO Max’s streaming platform
Exceed 2020 metrics:
372 unique pieces of content
11,375 video views
40,083 engagements on the website
1.37 billion impressions
In June 2020, HBO Max’s Human By Orientation launched our first digital Pride campaign by hosting a month’s worth of programming on a custom website: HumanByOrientation.com. While our campaign achieved success, driving our audience to a new website didn’t offer the most seamless experience. For 2021, we aimed to prepare a Pride campaign that provided the community with a more accessible virtual viewing experience. Instead of driving people to a new website, we sought to build a campaign that offered our programming on platforms where our audience was already consuming content. By mitigating barriers to entry and creating more digestible content, we hoped to build a more approachable and valuable Pride celebration for the community.
To address our business challenges, achieve our campaign objectives, and act on the insights we identified, we built out our Human By Orientation brand across social media and embedded it within the HBO Max streaming platform - to host our original Pride content including concerts, comedy sets, drag performances, and exclusive HBO Max behind-the-scenes interviews:
Instagram: We launched our @humanbyorientation Instagram handle in October 2020 to establish our voice as a year-round authority on queer culture and HBO Max content. By building out this channel over 8 months, we created a more effective central destination for our Pride content (compared to the custom website we build in 2020)
HBO Max platform: In June 2020, the HBO Max platform had only just launched and didn’t have the capability to host our Pride 2020 content. This year, with HBO Max as an established streaming service, we worked with our Product team to create a Pride collection page that housed both HBO Max queer programming and Human By Orientation’s original Pride content
YouTube: We also build a custom playlist on HBO Max’s YouTube channel for all Human By Orientation PRIDE 2021 content - expanding accessibility for our international audience
Every day throughout the month of June, we provided audiences with new, engaging content. We curated a robust catalog of exclusive, original programming including: 7 concert performances by different queer musical artists (including: Kehlani, King Princess, CHIKA, VINCINT, MUNA, Soccer Mommy, and Raveena), 5 comedy sets showcasing up-and-coming queer comedians (including Megan Stalter), 4 “Queerness in Conversation” pieces featuring HBO Max talent discussing queerness together, 5 never-before-seen We’re Here drag performances, and 10 Legendary house interviews. Additionally, each day of the month we used our Human By Orientation social platform to spotlight and raise awareness for 30 different LGBTQIA+ focused non-profit organizations.
We also leveraged our collaborations with queer talent to promote our Pride programming to their followers. This not only helped amplify our reach, but also helped build credibility across the queer community by centering queer voices and creators throughout our efforts.
Our Pride celebration not only provided our audience with best-in-class, social-first content throughout the month of June, but also further solidified Human By Orientation as the space to celebrate our proudest, queerest selves.
This year, our Pride campaign accelerated Human By Orientation’s social presence and drove excitement across the queer community and press alike - and we exceeded our target metrics:
1,001 unique pieces of content [+169% vs. 2020]
523,500 total views [+4502.2%]
3.1M engagements [+7633.95%]
1.76B impressions [+28.5%]
In the end, the success of our campaign was rooted in a deep understanding and empathy for our audience. In creating content that authentically resonated with our community, we continued to cultivate a global LGBTQIA+ network via Human By Orientation - encouraging everyone to celebrate their proudest, queerest selves.
