How This Canadian Pride Organisation Proved Beer Is Queer
The only people who shouldn’t be able to drink beer are those who are pregnant, and naturally, those below their area’s legal drinking age. Beyond that, gender, sexuality, job, race, occupation - none of these things should matter when it comes to enjoying a cold one.
Unfortunately, not everyone sees it this way. Look at the backlash Anheuser-Busch received when partnering with Dylan Mulvaney, and how the holding company subsequently handled the situation. For people to act like a beer brand supporting LGBTQ+ representation was somehow a shocking revelation that previously, had been kept locked away, was utterly absurd. It might genuinely be laughable if the situation weren’t so dire. Bars and nightclubs have long existed for all communities to gather, and beer has always been served in them. Beer companies have been sponsoring Pride events and running advertising campaigns from the ‘90s onward. And, as a matter of fact, beer brands have literally created multiple pieces of work representing and catering to the LGBTQ+ community in that time period. Anyone who argues otherwise is opting to live in willful denial, and is just objectively incorrect.
To this end, Canadian 2SLGBTQ+ organisation Pride in Advertising & Marketing (PrideAM) wanted to remind people of this fact by launching an initiative called ‘Your Beer Is Queer’. Developed by Halifax-based agency Shortstop, the movement is designed to reflect that beer is a product enjoyed by, brewed by, supported by and served to the LGBTQ+ community worldwide. Featuring a video compiling moments of relevant beer advertising, and a rainbow collage using the colours of various beer brands, this represents an opportunity for advertising and marketing professionals to call on senior leadership to take a firm stance and show their advocacy. Moreover, breweries are invited to back the LGBTQ+ community by adding their names and logo to the PrideAM list of brewers - declaring their unabashed, unashamed and unapologetic support.
LBB’s Josh Neufeldt sat down with Shortstop creative director and PrideAM member Sam Archibald to learn how this came to life.
LBB> How did the idea for ‘Your Beer is Queer’ come to pass? When did it first come into conception, and what initial ideas came to mind?
Sam> The idea came from a series of interviews that PrideAM’s Scott Knox made with CBC and Global News surrounding the Bud Light and Dylan Mulvaney influencer partnership. In those reports, the insight that beer brands have been sponsoring, supporting and marketing to the LGBTQ+ community for decades kept popping up, and Scott reached out to the PrideAM team (who I am also a member of) about doing something with it. So, the famous Pride chant: ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it’ was imagined with: ‘It’s beer, we’re queer, get used to it’.
LBB> Specifically, how did you land the opportunity to do this as Shortstop, and how did you settle upon the actual campaign name and slogan?
Sam> We wanted to help support PrideAM and this cause, and my connection to the organisation, naturally, meant I could mobilise the team to work quickly. We went through a couple iterations, from the idea that ‘All Beer Is Queer’ to just ‘Beer Is Queer’, but with Bud Light walking back on their initial marketing, the statement: ‘Your Beer is Queer’ was most applicable.
LBB> Tell us about the development process! And what made the final work the best way to respond to the recent protests against queer representation in the beer category?
Sam> We knew from the start that we wanted a way to include the communities, so the hashtag allows us to showcase the diversity of our community’s involvement in the beer industry. Simply, we’re consumers and they know it - that’s why they’ve sponsored events aimed at and marketed to us, both for Pride month and in LGBTQ+ bars the rest of the year. This issue stemmed from social media, so using those platforms to reclaim the narrative felt appropriate.
LBB> The collage poster itself is really colourful and memorable. How did this element come to life?
Sam> Thankfully, the major beer brands have both distinctive colour assets and examples past and present of their marketing to the community. We envisioned that we could line up the top brands from the red of Budweiser (a favourite of my husband’s and his former roommate’s cat’s name), to the yellow of Corona, and the green of Heineken to create a rainbow.
LBB> The accompanying spot is also brilliant! What went into creating this?
Sam> The idea arrived before we knew it was possible, but there are a lot of examples of queer representation in advertising over the years. Some of it is more problematic or stereotypical than what would work in 2023, but we felt it was important to show the breadth of how our community has been used in the advertising of beer, whether overtly or more coded. From a Patrick Swayze Pabst Blue Ribbon disco commercial from 1979, to recent campaigns from Brahma beer in Brazil, YouTube and creators like 'Marketing The Rainbow' have a great collection of these spots. One of our PrideAM directors, Kaia Kim, is also a DJ, and was a great help in finding the right track that would exude LGBTQ+ energy, as well as editing the spot with me.
LBB> As a whole, what challenges came with this project, and how did you overcome them?
Sam> Finding the right message and crafting the right call the action was a challenge, but working together with the PrideAM team, we are confident with what we landed on. This type of campaign is long-term in its growth - and building awareness on no budget is always a challenge - but we have some initiatives to grow the campaign based on the community’s and industry’s response.
LBB> As part of this campaign, Canadian breweries are being invited to show their support. How many have responded thus far, and do you plan to collaborate in bigger ways with them beyond this?
Sam> We just launched, but have got a few interested breweries already contacting us. We would love to have the site be a resource for people to know which beers are ‘queer’ in the context that they are proud to serve, support and market to our community.
There are also some plans in the works to expand the list of ‘Queer Beers’ on our site (yourbeerisqueer.com) in the future.
LBB> For Canadians in the industry reading about this, beyond raising a glass, how can they offer their support to this initiative?
Sam> If you are an ally or member of the LGBTQ+ community, giving our Instagram @prideamcanada and LinkedIn a follow would help us know this type of initiative is connecting with them. If you work at or with a brewery that you know is supportive, or sees our community as a customer, we’d love to include you on our ‘Queer Beer’ list. I believe most breweries are happy to serve and support, and already market their products, whether through sponsorship of Pride events, hosting events of their own, or creating supportive brews, and we want to represent the small brewers as much as the big players.
LBB> And personally, what are you hoping to see come from this? Where are you hoping to take the project in 2023 and beyond?
Sam> I’d love to see marketers around the world working at and with breweries be more empowered to run LGBTQ+-inclusive work. It doesn’t have to be only during one month in June, or only in queer-exclusive spaces - our community enjoys a night out in many of the same places straight individuals do. We’d love to create a space online for people to find out what beers big and small have done and are doing for the LGBTQ+ community, because, I think, it would surprise many.
LBB> Do you have a particular queer-friendly beer that you’d recommend readers try and raise their glasses with?
Sam> I’m encouraged by so many small breweries creating LGBTQ+-supportive beers across the country that I’d recommend readers try to find a group near them that they know is supportive. Part of this campaign is about uncovering who is queer-friendly, so I’m hoping if you ask me this in 12 months, I’ll have more concrete examples to suggest. I know there are queer-owned and operated breweries out there that we’d love to connect with as well!
Also, I’d like to add that if you’re out enjoying a beer, and are an ally or a member of our community, tag that brewery with the hashtag ‘#YourBeerIsQueer’ on Instagram and let them and us know you are a customer and giving them your hard-earned money. The backtracking and wavering that Bud Light showed considering the Dylan Mulvaney situation was the cause of their drop in sales, not the fact they ran an influencer campaign with them. Both bigots and LGBTQ+ were turned off by this. Raise a glass against hate!
