Since 2015 Pride Parade in Turkey is banned! Painting stairs in rainbow colors is banned! Selling rainbow colored products without an adult warning is banned! Wearing a pride t-shirt as a national football player is banned! Which means the rainbow flag is banned in every part of daily life and LGBTI+ community is being ignored.

Despite all the bans we wanted to create a rainbow flag with 6 different NGOs and celebrate the pride month standing with LGBTI+ community.

You can not use legal media channels to display a rainbow flag in Turkey. Either it wouldn be banned or it would be taken down quickly. But what if we use 6 different colors in different billboards? Then it would be ok we guess! So we took our chances and started looking for the perfect locations to do this.

We knew that the LGBTI+ community is very active on social media. Surely the #RainbowHack was going to become a sensation and they would take photos of it and share. Our approach was to create almost an iconic mural for them to share and join the celebration giving the message “We are here to stay!”

We bought billboards in different cities of Turkey. All negotiations were made to buy 6 billboards side by side every time. The messages of 6 NGOs were displayed on these billboards side by side to create the rainbow flag in every location.

These messages were supporting and meaningful for both the LGBTI+ community and their own organisations:

Change.org: Change is possible together.

Hayata Destek: Support life for an equal world.

Amnesty International / Turkey: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

Greenpeace: Together for the world.

ESHIDi: Do not condone discrimination.

Mor Çati: For an equal and free life away from violence.

The implementation was timed to the end of pride month to make a cheerful finale to the month.

The Rainbow Hack was the 1st to unite 6 different non-governmental organisations to raise rainbow flag during Pride Month. The campaign was organically shared by celebrities and influencers. It hit tens of news sites all around the world and became a trending topic throughout the LGBTI+ community.

Despite all the bans, we celebrated Pride Month with more than 10 million reach and 3 million impressions. 98% of these impressions were positive mentions. With a very small outdoor budget, we created a digital campaign worth millions of liras.

All six non-governmental organisations increased their social media followers between 10% and 35%