In June 2013, just seven months before hosting the XXII Winter Olympic Games, Russia passed new laws removing basic human rights from the LGBT community. GLISA (the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association) wanted to protest these laws whilst still supporting the athletes. 

We created 88 uniquely designed flags, one for every country competing, that incorporated the gay pride colours into the national flag design for people to fly on social media and support our cause. We then created a mobile distribution platform so people could circumvent the anti-propaganda laws by making it possible to hide the protest material on your smartphone and get it into the Games.

The campaign involved every country competing in the Games and sparked a hot debate online with 93% supporting the LGBT community versus a mere 7% who didn’t. It reached over 50,000 hits on Facebook and increased traffic to the GLISA site by over 1000%.

The flags were all available online through a website or mobile site and people were encouraged to share their peaceful protests through Instagram.

A insightful benefit of using a mobile site was the ability to get the flags through the security at The Games where protest material was confiscated.