C4 celebrates regional pride with ‘Proud All Over’

To mark Pride’s 50th anniversary, Channel 4 has launched a multimedia campaign celebrating 83 regional Pride events around the UK.

The “Proud All Over” campaign showcases allyship and pride events in smaller regional communities, from Abergavenny to Worthing, and launched on 25 June with a TV spot running across Channel 4 and All 4 starring comedian Tom Allen.

The film was directed by Robert Strange and animated by Alfie Dwyer showing smaller Pride celebrations around the country, rather than solely focussing on big city Pride parades.

Alongside the TV campaign, there will be geographically-specific copy-led ads put across roadside posters, urban fly-poster sites, major railway hubs and ad vans in more remote rural locations

Straplines such as “Queer as Folkestone”, “Llanelli – May Cause Excitement in Your Wetlands” and “Shetland – Everyone Remembers Their First Time” (as it is their first ever Pride) will be used to commemorate more than 40 regional Pride events across the UK.

Channel 4 will also use social media with social assets for 83 Pride events planned to appear on @channel4 and @thepinkpalace Instagram accounts going live prior to each event.

For places where there is no local Pride event taking place, people can use specially-designed Snapchat augmented reality lenses to reflect their location and spread Pride across local buildings.

Channel 4 has also produced a Proud All Over Road Trip show in a media partnership with Gay Times where LGBTQ+ creators, photographers, writers and illustrators visit and document smaller Pride events in different regions.

Tag Warner, CEO of Gay Times said: “So often these people and stories are overlooked but we hear from our audience, time and time again, that the impact of LGTBQ+ inclusiveness at home is most impactful. Speaking from my own experience, growing up far from big cities, I can’t begin to imagine how proud I would have felt to attend a pride event in my hometown, which thankfully now exists.”

The campaign will culminate in a LGBTQ+ themed weekend of programming from 30 June to 4 July on Channel 4, comprising Pride specials of Gogglebox, First Dates and Steph’s Packed Lunch and documentaries Freedom: 50 Years of Pride and Trans Superstar April Ashley.

Comedian Joe Lycett will also host a Big Pride Party live from Birmingham on 3 July with guest appearances from Steps, Self Esteem, Rosie Jones, Olly Alexander, Tia Kofi and Tayce.

Creative was by Channel 4’s in-house agency 4creative.