Gay Card: building an LGBTQIA+ social show
Gay Card is a nonsensical original. We took an old insult, “you’ve dropped your gay card”, and turned it into an LGBTQIA+ positive street quiz show that celebrates the community instead of mocking it.
The brief
To build a social show for the LGBTQIA+ community from scratch, on our own channels, with a format strong enough to grow a loyal audience.
Our approach
We took a line that used to be thrown at people and made it the game. Our presenter stops people on the street, runs them through a set of questions, and rules at the end whether they win their gay card back, with the whole thing played as a celebration.
Every episode uses the same hook, the same jingle and the same distinctive card, so viewers recognise the show within a second of the scroll and know exactly what they’re getting. We film regularly with LGBTQIA+ people across Birmingham and the rest of the UK, which keeps a steady flow of new episodes and new faces.
The results
Gay Card has reached 10M views and 2M engagements, and built a community of 35k followers who come back for every episode. The comments say it best: “shut up everyone my damn show’s on” and “yayyy my showww”.
The show is still growing quickly, and we have well-known guests lined up to feature in Q4.
What we’ve learned from Gay Card now shapes the social shows we make for brands, from recurring hooks and recognisable formats to building a community that sees a show as theirs.
What the work delivered
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