About this event

LGBTQIA+ individuals, communities and families are a burgeoning segment with financial power demonstrating unprecedented growth. Yet, brands still stumble on how to talk to queer people, mostly resorting to stereotypical messaging that’s squeezed into ultra-cluttered Pride months.

Are brands missing out on easy-to-grab opportunities that can build life-long relationships with a segment hungry for authentic recognition and connection from them?

Asad’s talk will be an honest look at what brands are doing, should be doing, and most importantly, shouldn’t be doing, to appeal to one of the most lucrative future audiences.

He’ll be discussing:

• Legendary queer comms disasters

• What went wrong?

• What could have been avoided?

• The art of getting ‘Queer Marketing’ right

• How can we help each other?

About the speaker

Asad Shaykh has practiced brand and marketing strategy globally for over two decades, across client, agency, and voluntary roles. His singular mission is helping brands influence culture and making them commercially successful.

Professionally, Asad has worked in Europe, Asia and North America, on various brand challenges ranging from crafting a bespoke IOT strategy for Vodafone, to launching Coca-Cola’s most successful market entrant in the UK. His most recent work was #Octocurse with PETA, helping them change behaviours around consumption octopuses, the most sentient creatures of the sea. His portfolio spans Swarovski, UNIQLO, HSBC and Volvo.

Voluntarily, Asad likes to fight for LGBTQI+ rights with Pride. In 2022, he led the MarComms for London’s largest Pride ever, with over 1.5M attending. He worked exclusively with LGBTQI+ creatives to create the world’s first 100%-queer-made Pride campaign. Working with The Royal Mint, he launched the world’s first LGBTQI+ 50p coin, with his words ‘Protest, Unity, Visibility and Equality’, currently in circulation across the UK. In 2023, he led the strategy for deploying the city’s largest ever Trans-positive march, under the banner of ‘Never March Alone’.

Currently, Asad is serving as the Head of Strategy at Grey London, while volunteering as Group Strategy Director for Pride in London. Recently, he has been named Campaign’s 40 over 40 and is part of The Diversity Power List for 2024.