Sounds Gay, Count Us All In: Auckland goes all out for pride via dentsu Aotearoa

Dentsu’s partnership with major pride festival ‘Big Gay Out’ this week delivered a powerful celebration of community, creativity and connection, with this year’s event scaling significantly in impact and presence.

As part of its sponsorship, dentsu launched the ‘dentsu Studio Suite’, a free interactive experience that combined creativity with media innovation.

Festivalgoers were invited to capture and share what Pride means to them. Personalised messages of identity, belonging and community were then connected directly to D4, dentsu’s proprietary dynamic creative optimisation platform, enabling the messages to be amplified across five major outdoor sites in the city.

With over 400 participants, messages were broadcast across billboards in the CBD, Karangahape Road, Newmarket and Parnell over five hours on Sunday, 15 February.

Says Lucciane Surtees, Head of DE&I dentsu Aotearoa: “Our dentsu Studio Suite activation absolutely delivered on what we set out to achieve: amplifying the voices of the Rainbow community and shining a light on what truly matters to them.

“We typically run these types of activations for our clients rather than on behalf of dentsu itself, but this partnership felt like the perfect opportunity to genuinely ‘walk the talk’ and showcase how media, creativity and experience can deliver truly impactful results.

“We showed up to champion Tämaki Makaurau’s Rainbow community loud and proud, and it was a truly amazing experience for all involved.”

The Burnett Foundation, primary organiser of the event, noted that the festival felt larger than ever, with dentsu’s activation and DEI employee team playing a key role in amplifying community participation.

Leo, an employee from dentsu Aotearoa’s Rainbow Network, says: “Representing dentsu at Big Gay Out 2026 meant so much to me. It was incredibly special to stand alongside the Rainbow community and help create a space where people could share their stories openly and proudly. Hearing what Pride means to others was genuinely heartwarming. It reinforced just how powerful it is when people feel safe to be themselves, and why visibility and support truly matter.”

The activation was delivered in collaboration with partners D4, Go Media and Bekon Media.

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