Campaign case study: Five Films for Freedom

  • The challenge

    Five Films for Freedom is the world’s widest-reaching LGBTQIA+ digital campaign, promoting love as a human right. In 2025, the challenge was to deliver a bold, global campaign in the face of rising hostility toward EDI values in many regions — while supporting colleagues to navigate sensitivities, reach audiences safely, and still achieve wide-scale impact.

  • The goal

    To platform emerging LGBTQIA+ filmmakers and bring visibility to issues affecting LGBTQIA+ communities worldwide. The campaign aimed to affirm the British Council and the UK’s commitment to human rights, target priority countries to drive meaningful engagement, and spark conversations online and in person.

  • My role

    I coordinated global campaign delivery in collaboration with partners, filmmakers and international teams. This included: shaping the content calendar and messaging strategy; managing content across web, social media, paid social media and email; supporting toolkit development and localisation for global posts; coordinating influencer activity and on-the-ground social coverage; evaluating impact and audience insights across channels.

Implementation

  • Created a digital marketing toolkit for 40+ global teams.

  • Delivered a central content strategy across the British Council and partner channels.

  • Commissioned social media and editorial content to humanise the campaign.

  • Worked closely with comms teams and global colleagues to mitigate reputational risk.

  • Ran paid YouTube and Meta ads and supported regionally tailored organic content.

  • Delivered internal comms to boost staff participation.

Results

  • The 2025 campaign reached over 2.2 million viewers, with an increase in average watch time per film, indicating deeper audience engagement.

  • 12% increase in filmmakers signing up for the organisation’s directory year on year.

  • The films were promoted in over 40 countries, KPIs for engagement in priority countries were surpassed.

  • Increased internal engagement and visibility through global staff participation.

  • Colleagues were empowered to share powerful stories while navigating risk.