Equinox’s galvanizing idea for Pride was creating the LGBTQAlpahbet. Expanding the current LGBTQA acronym from 6 to 26 letters, the fitness club set out to show that a handful of labels isn’t remotely sufficient to encompass the complex identities of the world’s 7 billion people.

The LGBTQAlpahbet started with a film that grew the current LGBTQA acronym to include twenty new additional letters such as W for “Womyx” I for “Intersex” or H for “Heteroflexible.” Each letter was defined through choreography that interpreted and celebrated the letter while showcasing bodies.

Constructed letter-by-letter, the format was an easy way for people to personalize and spell out their own messages of support and hope across their own social channels.

The LGBTQAlpahbet was a 5 min film developed for Pride month that expanded the LGBTQA acronym from 6 to 26 letters. Through striking visuals and documentary audio, the short film takes you through each letter of the expanded alphabet, giving new letters of the alphabet an identity of its own. From the film, over 40 deliverables including 26 individual “letter” films, stills, and more were created.

Before any filming, we worked with The Center to conduct interviews with several individuals from the NYC Pride community. We recorded their stories and learned of the challenges they face everyday. Audio snippets from these interviews are included throughout the piece. Dance routines were choreographed by Andrew Winghart using dancers from the Los Angeles LGBTQA community. An original score was composed by electronic recording artist White Sea. The piece was shot in an abandoned tire factory on the outskirts of LA for under 250K.

The film saw over 18MM impressions, 15MM of which were organic impressions. The film gained 8.4MM video views, more than 7x the video views of any previous Equinox social content. The film garnered 70% positive sentiment among the over 467K engagements (shares, comments, reactions) in this time frame. Additionally, Equinox gained over 20,000 fans in 12 days, more than 10x the brand’s average weekly growth. The film was shared by a number of influential social accounts including Fast Company and V Magazine (both accounts having follower counts of over 1.2MM).