New York Pride ‘fax attack’ clogs inboxes of anti-LGBTQ+ politicians
Havas has taken over this year’s New York City Pride march by lining the route with billboards exhorting participants and spectators to hold politicians accountable for opposing civil rights for the LGBTQ+ community.
Havas says fax you to politicians opposed to LGBTQ+ civil rights
The #BuryTheBills social purpose campaign challenges a different bill on every board, with an accompanying QR code triggering a fax to the offices of relevant state lawmakers – who are legally obliged to keep their fax machine on at all times.
Over 24 hours the campaign clogged up the in-trays of politicians behind ‘hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills,’ with 570,000 pages reproducing excerpts from queer novels to spread a little love and a lot of paperwork.
Dan Lucey, chief creative officer of Havas New York, said: “Sadly, years of progress to advance LGBTQ+ rights can be reversed seemingly overnight as homophobia and transphobia prevails in many state legislatures, particularly in southern parts of the country. The goal of this campaign is to call out the bills currently in front of Congress and give marchers a platform to immediately take action and make their voices heard in a way politicians literally can’t tune out.”
Mario Licato, associate creative director at Havas New York, added: “Bury the Bills isn’t just a project to me – it’s an everyday reminder of the attempt to roll back history and take away our rights. It’s 2022, but sometimes it feels like it’s 1962, so collectively we need to do everything we can to protect the human rights of the millions of people at stake.”
The campaign is underpinned by technology provided by Flowcode, which provided the underlying infrastructure necessary to translate snippets of popular queer literature published by Penguin Random House in the form of anonymous faxes.
Ensuring that no trees will be sacrificed in vain, the publisher has promised to plant up to 10,000 trees to offset the reams of paper consumed by the initiative.
Brands from Hulu to Vans have embraced this year’s Pride parades with a focus on authenticity.