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TBWA\London Launches The World's First Gay Pencil to Help Us All #WorkWithPride

06/07/2017
Advertising Agency
London, UK
180
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The Pride Pencil isn't actually a real product but was conceived to express that just like pens, all people should be treated the same

This year at Pride London, TBWA launch the 'Pride Pencil' - a fictitious tool created to raise awareness to the LGBT+ community in the workplace.

According to Stonewall, 62% of LGBT+ graduates who have come ‘out’, go back into the closet when they enter the job market - and that doesn’t sit well with us. With an aim to raise awareness of this, and help more people feel like they can be themselves at work, we created the ‘Pride Pencil’. Of course, the only thing that makes it different to other pencils, is its label.

At TBWA a team including members of the LGBT+ community came together to share their stories of ‘Coming Out’ some of which have been shared on our website - pridepencils.com.

Having spoken to members of the LGBT+ community there were a few clear themes, being: a fear of being treated differently by colleagues, lower expectations and career limitations. But thankfully, most experiences ended with a realisation that our colleagues are more supportive than we often expected. Likewise with Pride in London, thousands of LGBT+ community members are supported by millions of allies yet once we return to the workplace on Monday we lose that sense of support.

We want people to carry the celebratory spirit of Pride, the support and comradery back to work with them and to #WorkWithPride. After all, our diversity is what enriches us and our work. Omnicom and TBWA are committed to improving our support for LGBTQ+ employees worldwide, and we are proud to be working with Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Stonewall.

Last year, Omnicom was named a "Best Place to Work for LGBT equality" based on a score of 100 percent on the Corporate Equality Index (CEI). This is a great start, but we know that lasting change requires constant investment of time, resource, thought and action. So that’s exactly what we plan to do, but it all starts here - with a conversation about the most simple and representative of tools: the pencil.

This year Omnicom, TBWA’s holding company launched the Omnicom People Engagement Network (OPEN) Pride : committed to inclusion and diversity across Omnicom, its agencies and some 5,000 clients in over 100 countries. TBWA have created this campaign to be launched on the first ever OPEN Pride float at Pride London Saturday 8th July. OPEN Pride furthers that commitment by promoting acceptance and advocacy; creating opportunities for leadership, visibility, community involvement, networking and business.

"Talent is the lifeblood of Omnicom, and we strongly believe that valuing individuals for their diverse backgrounds, experience, styles, approaches and ideas yields high-performing, creative content. We are extremely proud to be recognised this year by the Human Rights Campaign along with so many of our clients and peers." - Tiffany Warren, SVP & Chief Diversity Officer, Omnicom

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