At Shake Shack, we’re committed to providing equal opportunities for success, removing obstacles and fostering a culture of diversity, inclusion and empowerment to ensure that our company continues to be a great place to work. The goal for our 2019 Pride campaign was to celebrate and show our support for the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as our team members and guests who are part of it. Our overarching campaign theme of “Shine a Light” was not only figuratively represented through the sharing of team member stories to spread awareness, but also visually reflected in our experiential elements and the creative direction of our physical and digital collateral. Our mission is to “Stand For Something Good,” and with that, we wanted to shine a light on what our team members in the community stood for.
Our 2019 Pride campaign was designed to be a fully integrated campaign with both digital and in-person touchpoints, as well as both public-facing and internal elements. Our goal was to be loud and proud in celebrating and supporting the LGBTQIA+ community through the below tactics:
Creative Direction: Dramatic neon lighting and rainbow colors created a cohesive aesthetic throughout all aspects of the campaign. The neon colors paid homage to the iconic green burger neon we have in-Shack and the dramatic contrast in lighting played into our theme of "shining a light" on the LGBTQIA+ community. Every image featuring a human element included a real Shack team member from the LGBTQIA+ community.
Digital: Our month-long social media campaign spanned Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and featured the stories of six diverse team members who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community from around the U.S. Our content culminated in an Instagram Story takeover featuring one of these team members at the NYC Pride March. Our goal was to spotlight and celebrate our amazing team in an authentic way. As added layers of digital support to raise awareness, we sent an email to our subscribers promoting these social media features and ran paid media surrounding our Pride Shake. Other digital channels, including app, website, blog and kiosks, prominently featured various elements of our Pride campaign.
Experiential:
Internal Community: In line with our commitment to cultivate a diverse and inclusive company culture, we organized celebratory and educational moments for our team to participate in throughout Pride Month. We hosted a Fireside Chat in the Home Office sharing the stories of team members who identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community (who were also featured on our social media accounts), invited our Shack fam to participate in the NYC Pride March and encouraged them to wear their rainbow burger Pride t-shirts on-the-job (not just during June, but year-round).
Laddering up to our goal of raising awareness and shining a light on team stories, our social media content garnered over 2.5 million impressions and nearly 50,000 engagements across our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles and Instagram Stories. Our celebratory Pride Shake was one of our top-performing shakes of the year. Press coverage of our campaign was included in nearly 30 publications, including Forbes, Ad Age, Elite Daily, KTLA and Grubstreet. Most importantly, we’re proud that our 2019 campaign showed our support for the wider LGBTQIA+ community through a $25,000 donation to The Trevor Project.
