Ahead of this summer's festival, Pride in London decided to commission some research asking people within the LGBT community about challenges they still face in today's society. Despite marriage equality, the survey revealed that nearly half of LGBT+ Londoners had experienced a form of hate crime.
Pride in London's creative agency BMB was able to translate the results into a campaign that aimed to make people remember that Pride isn't just an "amazing party" but also an equal rights protest.
Iain Walters, director of marketing, Pride in London said: "The overall message of the campaign is that we've come a long way but there's a way to go before we've got true equality."
He added: "In that world, we need to take a stand and that's what this campaign is really about. It's about saying, "things have improved, we've won a lot of battles but there's a way to go" because the everday experience of LGBT+ people is not entirely positive."
Harry Boothman, a creative at BMB said: "Somewhere over the Rainbow has alway been a kind of LGBT anthem, so for us it was about taking something that aready resonates well and flipping it slightly."
BMB wanted to create a campaign that showed the challenges LGBT people face and what can happen if "we can all create a slightly more accepting future and look beyond the rainbow".
They also hoped to put some renewed energy into the rainbow flag, which some people within the community feel has lost some of its meaning.
Boothman added: "There was a moment on the shoot, half way through the film where there's a young girl coming out to her mother and we basically got the two to act it completely off the cuff.
It honestly went on for about half an hour, this girl saying "I've got something to tell you" and the mother saying "I don't understand what you're trying to say it, feels like it's just a phase, you've had boyfriends before" and it was really really powerful and you had loads of members of the crew and loads of people - myself included - with tears in our eyes listening to this."
Walters said: "One of our trans volunteers came to us and said "I've never seen a piece of film that so captures the trans experience in a way that isn't an after thought" and that made us incredibly proud and incredibly happy to see that kind of reaction."
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