In 2020, the LGBTQIAP+ community faced an unprecedented challenge. Pride parades across the globe had to be cancelled. To ensure visibility for the community anyway, we teamed up with CSD Germany and our media partners Instagram and ProSieben and turned GAY PRIDE into #STAYPRIDE – a digital parade that established a whole new form of protest on Instagram: the Bed-In for Pride.

Equipped with a specially designed bedding collection for the occasion, the "Christopher Sheets," we called on the community to demonstrate safely but visibly from their home beds under #staypride.

With #STAYPRIDE, however, we did not simply create a digital replacement event, but a new kind of dialogue within and outside the LGBTQIAP+ community, which is still actively taking place today. CSD Germany was able to establish a new platform for visibility with #STAYPRIDE.

For #STAYPRIDE, we translated the strategy that Pride parades also use on the streets into digital: Watch, participate, and share. All users needed to participate was – besides a bed – a protest message and a smartphone to take pictures.

By initially identifying and activating LGBTQIAP+ influencers and supporters, we got the initiative rolling and moved countless people to join the protest. In the course, further Instagram postings ensured a constant run of the activation campaign.

#STAYPRIDE, as a digital demonstration, reclaimed the very visibility that the community lost when street parades were cancelled.

Since every Bed-In and post by community members was a protest and call to action at the same time, our demonstration grew exponentially to a potential reach of over 8 million, in contrast to physical parades. By comparison, Germany’s largest Pride street parade (Berlin Pride) counted 1 million participants for the first time in 2019.