The media landscape is shifting, and for brands engaging LGBTQ+ audiences, it’s becoming increasingly complex.

From political polarisation and a growing backlash against DEI, to changing media funding and heightened scrutiny online, the environment in which brands and publishers operate is evolving rapidly.

In this episode of the Grayling Media Podcast, Ashley Daly, Head of Grayling Media, speaks to Ben Cooper, Grindr’s Director of Consumer Comms, and Marcus Wratten, Senior Entertainment Reporter at PinkNews, to explore how these changes are playing out, and what it means for brand communications strategies today.

Listen to the full episode and read the transcript below.

Transcript: Grindr & PinkNews on LGBT+ audiences in an age of polarisation

00:00:06 Ashley Daly

Welcome everyone to the Grayling Media podcast.

We have a very special episode today and it’s going to be focused on LGBTQ plus comms in today’s media landscape.

I’m Ashley Daly, head of Grayling Media, also director of brand communications here at Grayling.

Some of the topics we’ll be discussing today are what brave communications looks like in today’s ever-changing world and media landscape, how brands can authentically show up in a meaningful way, and also how we can navigate the political polarisation that’s going on.

And then lastly, how brands can also navigate what people are calling a backlash era on DEI specifically.

Joining me to tackle all of this and more is the wonderful Ben Cooper from Grindr.

For those of you who don’t know, Grindr is a gay dating app and I’ll hand over to Ben to maybe give a bit more info.

00:01:10 Ben Cooper

Hi guys, my name is Ben Cooper, Director of Consumer Content at Grindr.

I’ve been with the brand for two years now and we’re an app, the Global Gayhood in Your Pocket.

We’re 16 years old now and we’re one of the OGs when it comes to gay dating connections and networking.

00:01:31 Ashley Daly

Fab.

And sat next to him is the fabulous Marcus Rattan.

He is pop culture journalist at PinkNews.

And I’ll let you tell a bit more about PinkNews.

00:01:43 Marcus Wratten

Hi, yeah, so I’m Marcus Wratten, Senior Entertainment Reporter at PinkNews.

PinkNews, I’ve been there for three years, just over three years.

PinkNews is the world’s leading LGBTQ plus media brand, essentially, serving news, politics, pop culture, videos, articles, et cetera, over the web.

00:02:08 Ashley Daly

Brilliant.

Great to have you with us.

Now, before we dive in, you may be aware, but currently the BFI Flare Festival is underway, which is an annual celebration of LGBTQ plus film.

And I wanted to start off with perhaps a bit more of a lighter topic, talking about, you know, a film that you would recommend our listeners to watch and a reason why.

And I’ll start with Marcus.

00:02:39 Marcus Wratten

So I’ve watched a couple so far from BFI Flare.

There’s so much there.

There’s a film that is, I think it’s the BFI Flare’s special presentation film this year.

It’s called Big Girls Don’t Cry after the Fergie song because it’s based in 2006.

It’s the debut film by, I need to get her name right, Paloma Schneiderman, I think.

And it’s essentially set in New Zealand and it follows this 14 year old girl over 1 summer.

She comes to terms with her queerness.

And I just really enjoyed it because I don’t feel like we, as queer people, get to see that really subtle, nuanced journey of being a teen, learning that about ourselves.

You know, you’re either fed you’re in the closet or you’re bursting out of it.

Whereas this is like a really gentle exploration or more about the journey.

Just the nuance of it, which feels relatively new in film.

Yeah, it was 10 to watch.

00:03:47 Ashley Daly

Ben.

00:03:48 Ben Cooper

I think I have to say mine’s Pillion, which I know has been everywhere in the media recently for a few reasons.

It’s quite an indie filmmaker and quite an indie storyline where with such a mainstream actor such as Alexander Skarsgard, who was probably seen as, you know, taking a huge risk on a role like this, that has just gained so much traction, even seeing him have a lot of fun with queer fashion and fetish on the red carpets and things, but also the fact that it covers a queer narrative or like a romantic storyline in a really nuanced way.

It talks about the fetish and kink community, but also really does justice to it, I think.

The way that it’s quite a niche narrative that has made, you know, really hit the mainstream has been really powerful over the last six months.

We even got a little Grindr integration and plug at the end to the fact that we got a little Grindr shout out at the very end of the film.

No spoiler alerts, was a nice little cherry on the cake as well.

00:04:57 Ashley Daly

Did you know that was coming out?

00:04:59 Ben Cooper

No, it was a freebie, which we love.

A24 reached out to us October last year.

So the team got to have a private screening, which was great.

It was really cool to see.

Such a good film.

00:05:13 Ashley Daly

I’ll have to give that one a watch.

My recommendation, I’ve got a bit of bias in that a friend was involved in the production.

It’s called Outlaws and it’s about a gay activist who is fighting for the same sex rights in Namibia and interestingly visits England to discover more about how the laws of his country have been influenced by the colonial past.

I just thought it was really interesting synopsis, and how, history and outdated laws in the UK, in this country, has impacted other societies and how that has played out even to this day.

So yeah, give that one a watch on the list.

Fab.

00:06:07 Ashley Daly

Well, talking of film, here’s my segway.

I was really surprised by a report that was out in November, which uncovered new findings into the number of hours that LGBTQ plus actors are getting on screen, as well as the number of films coming out of Hollywood featuring the queer community.

It reflects a wider debate that’s going on both politically, socially and in the media nowadays.

You only have to look at Pride in the UK.

I think three in four Pride events have cited a lack of corporate funding.

You’ve seen Liverpool Pride, Manchester Pride go under.

Student Pride last month has been pulled, all citing this lack of funding from sponsors and they’re really struggling financially.

In the media, you have, you have titles still doing really well in the queer media space, but some of the perhaps more niche media titles are really struggling very much for the same reason.

They’re not getting the ad spend from brands as they used to.

But also, you know, you are seeing big national broadcasters like the BBC dropping I Kissed a Boy, I Kissed a Girl series, which, you know, is worrying, but also I think reflective of changing and shifting priorities at the national broadcasters.

This all comes back to a wider political polarisation we’re seeing, arguably globally, but I think very much being fuelled by what’s coming out of the US at the minute.

LGBT plus media and culture is being influenced by this woke versus anti-woke narrative that’s being pushed.

Another interesting development and something we need to be very mindful of.

But I think whatever your views on all of this, the polarisation is having an impact and especially has untold consequences for both brands and the media.

I want to start on the media landscape in 2026.

So Marcus, I guess from your experience of PinkNews, how has the conversation around LGBTQ plus issues evolved in the last few years?

00:08:40 Marcus Wratten

It’s interesting because it’s gone to polar extremes.

Like we, the LGBTQ plus community is so influential and the content that we are part of is driving some of the biggest trends culture of the last couple years.

In 2024, Charli XCX’s Brat album was everywhere.

Very, very much driven by like her gay fan base or her queer fan base.

2025 was a huge rivalry.

Like gay ice hockey show, we are a huge part of the cultural conversation.

So like we’re always in the media because we’re driving pop culture.

But then on the flip side, that has, or not because of that, but there is also the pushback which has intensified 2, three, four fold in the last few years.

Every queer pop culture that is coming out is facing deeper scrutiny and ridicule and is it’s no longer, just a positive like this great piece of media has come out.

It’s torn apart by either right wing publishers or commentators, you know, who all have a platform now on social media.

It’s both ends of the spectrum.

We’ve got the great representation in a lot of ways, but that has come at this added cost of being, really, really targeted because of that.

00:10:17 Ashley Daly

PinkNews has become more social media driven and you’ve done really well on Snapchat, for example.

How are you being received by different communities on social media?

You mentioned that extreme polarisation, are you seeing that end of the comments against your content that you’re putting out?

00:10:42 Marcus Wratten

Yeah, the difficulty is that, when a piece of content does well on social media, which is like the end goal, right, for any brand or media publisher, that by the fact of it doing well inevitably means that it’s going to end up in spaces, people that don’t identify as part of the community or actively dislike the community for whatever reason.

When we’ve got something that’s done well, it doesn’t take long to scroll through the comments and find, really, really increasingly vitriolic response to that.

It’s twofold, I do find we’re finding more people and more people are interested in the stuff that we’re putting out.

Our audience is growing all the time.

But that does come with, yeah, finding the wrong people, I think.

00:11:42 Ashley Daly

Has that intensified, you know, in the last year, two, three years or

Is it just a longest trend that you’re seeing?

00:11:51 Marcus Wratten

I think it’s always been there, but it’s definitely got worse and worse.

You know, I think there is Meta and X obviously are just not the most queer friendly spaces a lot of the time.

They have just become increasingly so, I think.

When you reflect back on the last 12 plus months, administration changes in the US, it’s just become a lot more of a hostile environment on social media.

We are a prime target of that as a publisher that focuses on LGBTQ plus, but we do a lot of trans focused articles and content as well.

00:12:37 Ashley Daly

Which people get very passionate about it.

Ben, how has Grindr adapted its comms?

In light of the social media polarisation and the changing media landscape as well.

How have you adapted your comms in recent years?

00:12:56 Ben Cooper

Yeah, I mean, I think we face a lot of the same issues.

We are essentially a media hub and platform in our own right in that sense.

Like we’re amongst all the dating outs, we have the biggest social presence and everything that we do is very social first and content first when it comes to storytelling with any campaigns or projects that we do.

So we’ve really had to navigate it, but we’ve also had to just lean in even more.

I think we’re really selective and protective of our audience when it comes to spotlighting stories, but also the people that we work with when it comes to talent or influencers, making sure that their audience, is mirroring like our values as well.

So it’s making sure that we’re speaking to the right people on such a global scale.

But even in terms of things like you talked about the different platforms, but censorship on certain platforms now has really shifted in the last couple of years where things that we are being flagged for now in terms of content, which, you know, could be just two guys holding hands or kissing is getting flagged from a sensitive content standpoint.

So that’s something that we’ve, we don’t want to get our channel shooting down because it’s such a hub and a place of entertainment, engagement, education for our audiences that we’ve really had to toe the line as well.

Even we’ve built an in-app content hub called Grindr Presents, which showcases a lot of the same content, but in a more uncensored, unfiltered way.

So we can still have those conversations, but be a little bit more kind of less sensitive when it comes to talking of things, talking about things like gay intimacy, hookups, the thing that you want to talk about at the pub with your mates, basically.

It gives us a little bit more freedom that we can still speak to them without getting blocked by the Googles and the Metas of the world.

00:15:00 Ashley Daly

Do you feel you are scrutinised more because you’re a gay dating app?

00:15:05 Ben Cooper

Yeah, it’s also because of our global footprint, like we’re 16 years old, we’re available in 190 plus countries.

We really do have the biggest reach in that sense, but it’s also meant we’ve had to really localise our approach.

Even when we’re talking to Latin markets or Brazil, there’s such nuance in those different markets that when we’re talking about things like from the fun, floaty, hookup side of things down to safety, especially in other markets, we’ve really had to take a very local approach to how we show up in a meaningful way.

I guess it’s a good opportunity maybe to explain a bit more about the global gayborhood and some of the recent activations you’ve done around that.

Yeah, I mean, it’s a mission and a message that we’ve really been building over the last couple of years, but it’s just evolving with how the app and how our community has been engaging with Grindr over the years.

What was previously seen as just like a functional hookup app, it’s become this, you know, grid and place for people to connect.

People use it when they’re traveling to meet friends, to get recommendations.

It’s really how can we adapt and keep up with how our community is already using it and hijacking it.

We’ve really built it out to be, yes, we’re still a hookup app, but we’re so much more than that now.

The way that we create content and do our campaigns and storytelling really mirrors that.

Things like our host or travel series, it really leans into how people use Grindr when they’re traveling to find those more off the beaten track suggestions, the gay hood hotspots and things like that we have a pop culture podcast series and each year we do like a global gay gear in review called Unwrapped, which is basically a survey amongst all of our users to kind of live.

00:17:19 Ashley Daly

Talk of the gay town in London in December.

00:17:21 Ben Cooper

Yeah, we even got physical trophies made this year, which was amazing, but it’s really tapping into, you mentioned earlier, like the gay community and the queer community being cultural drivers.

It’s a lot of stuff that we’re seeing and the gay internet is picking up will soon become mainstream.

It’s really celebrating that and just how tapped in our community is.

00:17:45 Ashley Daly

Great.

I guess from a media perspective, do you sometimes feel that traditional media and I think in particular broadsheet media is more hostile towards your brand or is it or do you speak to audiences where they are?

00:18:06 Ben Cooper

I think it’s really on a case-by-case basis.

Yeah, whenever we do roll a story out or a campaign, we’re really targeted in terms of the outlets that we outreach to and want to engage with.

I think it’s been really interesting with certain stories, we know there’s going to be outlets that we’re just never going to win over or aren’t going to show us in a very favourable light.

But I think a really interesting example of they’ve got really wide pickup across so many titles that wouldn’t even usually answer our emails was around the Winter Olympics in Milan where we updated our location settings and features just because we wanted to protect the Olympic Village so people couldn’t get outed if they were, an athlete in the Olympic Village.

That story was covered everything from business titles to the MailOnline to, you know, across the board.

It’s a simple thing that we did, but it was really putting our community and putting the athletes, you know, that might not be out or, you know, first and foremost beyond a jazzy glitzy campaign.

00:19:17 Ashley Daly

It just demonstrates that there is that appetite in the media for those personal stories, but also stories from the community still.

But I guess on that point, do you think brands, you know, perhaps more in the mainstream space, could be doing more to rally against the backlash in LGBT reporting?

00:19:41 Ben Cooper

Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a bravery thing.

There’s so many case studies to show where that is a success.

Heated Rivalry is a perfect example of that and the bravery of HBO to pick that up and really run with it.

You know, it was a Canadian production Crave that got picked up by HBO.

There wasn’t much pre-marketing, but they saw obviously how it was an overnight sleeper hit.

And now they’re hosting at the Oscars.

It’s literally one of the most talked about shows.

Where other streaming platforms or brands are less brave aren’t seeing those opportunities.

I think Boots is a really good example.

You know, it was a show that launched that was very much for queer audiences and, you know, lived experiences.

But it had great viewership and it also had really strong ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, but after one season it just disappeared.

So it’s really interesting to see people lean in or people shy away, but like there’s a ton of solid concrete examples of how it works and how it can go beyond queer titles and queer audiences and really tap into the mainstream.

00:20:53 Ashley Daly

Absolutely.

When it comes to the media, Marcus, are there brands that you think have done a really great job engaging the queer community and perhaps brands that haven’t done so done so well?

00:21:08 Marcus Wratten

I mean, in terms of like brand, you know, we’re sat with Grindr, like that’s their prime example.

Exactly.

I mean, but it is, you know, it’s it is a case of content created by the LGBTQ+ community for the LGBTQ+ community.

Like with them saying, you know, really getting ahead of the trends and knowing what the trends are, like what queer people are talking about on Twitter one day, X, sorry, one day is going to be, you know, talked about the following week.

Grindr is an example of really being able to tap into that.

In terms of traditional brands, I’m impressed with companies like Lush or Levi’s where, like Lush is really standing for the community and makes inclusivity part of their core ethos.

Then Levi’s, clothing company will, yes, they’ll have like a Pride collection, which a lot of brands and companies do, but it’s so rooted in the history of the LGBTQ plus community.

00:22:27 Ben Cooper

Even Doechii is the face of their most recent ad campaign as well.

00:22:30 Marcus Wratten

Exactly, like they know who the queer talent

are though like respected at the moment.

They know the histories that have formed and shaped the community and the place of where we’re going and I kind of respond to that.

So yeah, they’re just a couple of examples.

I mean, we started on BFI Flare, you know, BFI Flare is owned by BFI and they literally have like an archive of historic queer cinema as part of their overall collection of films.

So it’s more than, I think what brands are discovering now or should be discovering now is that it’s more than putting up a rainbow logo in June.

00:23:21 Ashley Daly

It is a mix of having your finger on the pulse, knowing what queer community is talking about and interested in, but also making sure that your contents are rooted in your brand values and it is coming across authentically.

00:23:36 Marcus Wratten

Yeah, I think it, yes, like it’s so clear when it’s when it’s a June thing.

00:23:43 Ben Cooper

I mean, I think it’s, especially within the community, the first question will be, come the 1st of July, what are you doing for the other 364 days of the year?

Lockdown was a prime example of like corporate brands steering away because they didn’t have that flashy parade float moment where they could slap their logos everywhere, but just as much.

It’s different within each market.

Pride is a party and a celebration, but in some places it’s also a protest and it’s like a fight for rights and safety and equality.

If brands can’t speak to both, the rainbow logo of it all is, it’s knowledge void now.

It’s people, we’re not buying it anymore, basically.

00:24:36 Ashley Daly

On that point, you know, key moments of the year like Pride, like Eurovision, like Mighty Hoopla, for example, I guess advice for other brands looking to activate in that space and, you know, showing up authentically.

00:24:53 Ben Cooper

It’s showing up in a meaningful way that, we don’t sponsor things.

It’s meaningless for us because it’s not like we’re trying to do an awareness play.

It’s how we can show up and really be additives to an experience.

Hoopla is such a good example of that.

They’ve created their own gaybourhood, like Corner of a Gayborhood from an East End Queer Night that is now one of the biggest festivals in London and is huge and gets huge global talent, but it is so unapologetically queer.

Yeah, we can celebratory.

So it was literally the easiest no-brainer for us to partner with them and we create our own world within that.

That’s how we’re a digital app, but how can we show up in a very IRL way and create these like gayborhood spaces at various events, Pride moments, festivals around the world?

We, for the last few years, we’ve taken a big yellow Grindr bus around the world to show up at places that Grindr wouldn’t usually show up and offer something to the community during Pride events as well.

So I think it’s showing up and having something to like add value beyond

Self-promotion.

Corporate bank put in logo.

00:26:16 Marcus Wratten

I was atop the Grindr bus at my two universities.

So I’ve been there.

00:26:21 Ashley Daly

We’ll repeat that this year.

From a media perspective, Marcus, how quickly can audiences tell when a brand campaign or a certain messaging around a brand isn’t being authentic to the community?

00:26:38 Marcus Wratten

Just very quickly now, I think, we’re in an age where the perception I get is that a lot of the community have become tired of the repeated platitudes. We got over love is love as a statement in like 2016.

We’re in a space where meaningless words aren’t just aren’t really enough.

We need to see that you are aware of who the community is inspired by.

We were talking about Mighty Hoopla, they have, they’re like as a music festival, their lineup is so tailored to what a lot of the community are interested in.

And couldn’t be more tailored.

Exactly, They’ve got Jane McDonald this year.

Come on.

That immediately comes off as authentic and you’re drawn to those brands that obviously have people on their team who are part of the community themselves.

So it’s, yeah, it’s very, very rapid that we’re able to see when a brand is literally jumping on a trend or jumping on a month of the year.

Even with Heated Rivalry, you know, you were able to see when a brand was investing in that show because it was like a huge hit or investing in it on the first day it became big because the queer people on Twitter were saying it was going to be good.

Sorry, X.

The queer.

00:28:14 Ashley Daly

For we know now.

00:28:15 Ben Cooper

I think to your point as well, the slogan of it all, it evolves and changes according to societal needs and things that are happening politically, and love is love was nice for a while, and you see things shift.

A great example of that was, the Protect the Dolls t-shirt movement.

James from Not A Phase, who was also, you know, nominated as Glamour Woman of the Year over the last year, was, you know, we need to move on from Protect the Dolls to Pay the Dolls.

The needs evolve, and it has to go beyond the slogan to show actual cause and effect as well.

00:28:59 Marcus Wratten

Just to jump in on that as well, like, an example of where this hasn’t always worked, thinking about Eurovision, which within the community, we love it, it’s great.

But they had a thing where they were hesitant or didn’t explicitly allow some of the acts to bring Pride flags on stage.

And it’s that kind of relax is a big, big debate.

Eurovision, isn’t it?

Yeah, it becomes like it’s that example when it’s like, okay, you know, you’ve got that audience and we’re investing our time and our money in this as a brand.

You’ve got to respect that is a big part of your audience.

And we want to be proudly able to show, for example, the flag.

Yeah.

And that’s when you start to question, okay, how much are you ready?

Yeah, How much are you really putting into this community?

00:29:56 Ashley Daly

When it comes to your reporting at PinkNews, just does that seeing through a brand’s campaign, does that impact your willingness or the sentiment towards that particular brand at that time?

00:30:13 Marcus Wratten

Yeah, we’re always going to be doing in-depth research about a brand before we’re putting, putting them in a really positive or, this is great for the community, we’ve got a list, obviously, Grindr, where they are so much embedded into the community that it makes sense to always be putting them forward.

We have to be aware.

00:30:47 Ashley Daly

I won’t ask who’s on your blacklist.

00:30:49 Ben Cooper

You’re having to do the diligence because consumers are as well.

They’re really digging into what goes on structurally within a business, what their, what their internal DEI efforts are and things like that.

It’s beyond the sexy consumer campaigns.

People are really holding brands accountable for what goes on behind closed doors because CEOs, leaders are really having to be transparent about that now and rightly so.

As journalists, you’re doing it because consumers are really digging in and they are vocal about it more so than ever as well.

You mentioned student pride and other pride festivals that have had their corporate funding stripped and, as a LGBTQ plus publication, we’d want to know who are the companies and the brands that we’re putting the financial backing behind those pride festivals and then now that things are getting tastier and tastier, I have pulled them out very soon.

00:31:57 Ashley Daly

Yeah.

Moving on from that topic and what people are calling a backlash era, do you think it’s accurate to call it that?

Do you think that it’s making brands more afraid to be bold, to be brave in their communications?

I’ll start with Ben.

00:32:16 Ben Cooper

Yes and no.

The ones that are being brave are really seeing the payoff and it’s not just a one and done campaign payoff.

It’s the long-term payoff.

I mean, the queer community, we’re a loyal audience.

We lean into stand culture and like deep cuts for a reason.

We’ll follow people and brands for years.

It’s an odd example of Hillary Duff, her big relaunch.

She’s really leaning into the fact that her audience is predominantly gay and she has gone hard for that.

It’s been such a renaissance for her because of that fandom, she even did a grinder shout out on our channels, which they came to us and knowing that it’s going to be such a tapped in, excited audience for her.

She’s now getting coverage in Elle, basically every title.

Every interview she’s talking about her gay fandom, her gay audiences, how she is doing it for the gays.

Seeing that on such a huge scale and also taking such a hard line on her has been huge.

It’s working for her.

Seeing other artists do that, but also other brands.

The case studies for it speak for themselves, but it’s been so interesting to see the ones that are pulling away, because just as we are a loyal and obsessive audience, we also don’t forget.

00:34:02 Ashley Daly

So hold grudges.

But equally,

Do have a higher spend on average and the loyalty point, do remember and do appreciate brands that do shop for them?

00:34:17 Marcus Wratten

I mean, there’s a, talk about Hilary Duff, but there’s, you could literally an array of pop stars who have credited the community with keeping them afloat.

Like Jade is obviously massive, Charli XCX, Carly Rae Jepsen.

I know these are pop stars, but they’re also brands in the sense of, you know, for a long time they’ve supported the community and we have reacted in kind for years and will continue to do so.

There’s a lot of other companies like brands could learn from that loyalty.

00:34:48 Ben Cooper

A lovely example was for Unwrapped last year.

We, it was our first time creating actual trophies and sending them out.

00:34:56 Ashley Daly

You just want to explain what Grinder Unwrapped is.

00:34:58 Ben Cooper

Yes, Grinder Unwrapped is our annual gay year in review. Shout out to Peyton on my team.

With the slogan, the internet works fast, but the gay internet works faster.

Like I said, we’ve got such a global gay audience that is obsessively tapped in.

It’s really version of the year in review from all things from mother of the year, album of the year, down to which country has the highest percentage of tops.

It really runs the full gamut of not just gay culture, but gay dating behaviour in and out of the app as well.

We created trophies this year and sent them out to some of our key winners such as Kesha, Katseye, and we’re not paying these people.

We’re just sending out a trophy in the hopes that it’ll be well received.

The excitement and the payoff that we got from that from the likes of Kesha, Katseye announced it on their global tour on stage, thanking Grindr and thanking the Gays for the love and the trophy.

Amazing.

Just showing that the pull that their audience has.

It was really, really fun to see that we’re not paying these people, but they were genuinely excited to post about getting a trophy that is a seal of approval from the Global Rummy.

00:36:20 Ashley Daly

I love it.

Great.

Sticking with you, Ben.

When it comes to the different channels and platforms you’re on, how are you supporting your users and also navigating this fractious environment on social as well.

00:36:40 Ben Cooper

One of the things that we’ve put a lot of time and energy into is making sure that it’s a two-way dialogue.

Brands can spend all amounts of money on these great content productions and shoots, but if you’re also not listening to that two-way dialogue, it becomes kind of falling on deaf ears.

We have such a vocal community, so we really take that to heart in terms of how we engage in the comments and the DMs, how we listen to what people are saying.

We take our social listening and social sentiment really seriously because we’re getting a real-time snapshot of how our audience is feeling, what their bugbears are, what they’re really excited about.

That honestly really informs how we curate our content, how we build our different content series and even crowdsourcing opinions.

Hostel Travel is a great example of, tapping into different global gay destinations.

But we’re a team based in the U.S.

We want to know where your favourite destinations are.

We don’t want to be the dictators of it.

00:37:53 Ashley Daly

So you need the input from around the world.

00:37:57 Ben Cooper

Whether that be from engaging on our social channels or creating surveys in-apps and really get that honest feedback.

00:38:09 Ashley Daly

How successful are the in-app surveys and the engagement that you see?

00:38:15 Ben Cooper

We’re an opinionated band.

We still think an opportunity to really issue the hates to really speak our minds as well.

Unwrapped is an example of that.

Obviously, that’s a specific thing at the end of the day that everyone gets excited about, but it was up, it tripled in terms of survey submissions than we’d had in previous years, because people really want to have their stamp on who they think, you know, killed it with Alvin of the year.

It gets, especially on our channels, it gets very, very divisive as well.

00:38:52 Ashley Daly

Crazy debate, which is what you watch.

Which we love, yeah.

Marcus, I guess now looking to wrap up a little bit, but looking ahead, how do you think communications to the queer community will evolve in the next few years?

00:39:09 Marcus Wratten

We are going to see more and more people wanting that community-based models.

Whether that is through specifically created channels on different platforms, instead of just posting into the ether like on X, using Reddit channels, etc.

From real trusted figureheads in the community, people are going to want to hear from those more and more and more influencers on TikTok, etc.

People are going to just want to hear voices that they can respect and that have integrity and have la proven track record of really being there for the community and standing up for the community or being part of the community themselves.

I think as the trend there is going to just continue while we’re in this phase of, as you mentioned, DEI backlash, which doesn’t really seem to be going anywhere.

People are just going to be wanting to hear from really trusted voices, whether that’s individuals or brands themselves.

Cutting the crap with the rest of it, I think.

00:40:24 Ashley Daly

At PinkNews, is there anything on the horizon or coming up this year that perhaps you could give us a sneak peek on?

00:40:32 Marcus Wratten

We’re seeing a lot of growth on our video platforms.

Since we set up Snapchat, I’ve done historically well on there, but I’ve also just really, really grown across Instagram and Facebook and TikTok.

Those audiences have just become bigger and more engaged.

Obviously, like I said earlier, it does come with the second part.

But so I think we’ll be more and more reaching out to those audiences that are engaged and building those platforms.

00:41:06 Ashley Daly

Nice.

Ben, thoughts on how the LGBTQ plus communications landscape will evolve.

00:41:13 Ben Cooper

I referenced it earlier, but especially with global brands, it’s how you can show up locally.

It’s all well and good talking from an office in West Hollywood in a very established gayborhood, but how do we alter our communications and storytelling to be useful and additive for people that don’t necessarily have that access to safe spaces?

One of the things that we are so adamant about is we create content and create discussion and conversation around the full gamut of the queer experience from everything from the gay internet role and the pop culture, which we love.

We have a great podcast which gets guests like Jinkx Monsoon, Peaches on it, but also talking about things like privacy, safety, equality, Grinder for Equality is an arm within our business where we’re really pushing and supporting local organisations that are doing the really important stuff on the ground.

How can we not just support them, but spotlight them and really pass the mic to them as well?

00:42:30 Ashley Daly

Great.

Well, thanks guys.

That has been a really fun, exciting and interesting conversation.

Thanks to listeners who have tuned in and we’ll see you soon.

 

 

 

 

 

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