An unsettling statistic for the LGBTQ+ community and its supporters: in the 1980s, there were roughly 200 lesbian bars in the U.S.; today there are just 24. So for a third consecutive year, Jägermeister teamed up with the Lesbian Bar Project, a platform designed to bring “awareness and prosperity” to America’s remaining lesbian bars, this time for a three-city bar tour and first-of-its-kind metaverse experience. The program served as a celebration of the October premiere of “The Lesbian Bar Project,” a streaming series inspired by the 2021 documentary of the same name available on The Roku Channel, and an opportunity to help preserve queer spaces by sharing the compelling stories of lesbian bar owners and their patrons.
Tour stops included New York City’s Henrietta Hudson, Houston’s Pearl Bar and Phoenix’s Boycott Bar. Each activation offered screenings of episodes from the docuseries, which spotlights a variety of lesbian bars and the communities they serve. They also featured the traveling Lesbian Bar Project Museum, an exhibit of photos and artifacts commissioned by Megan Metcalf of The Library of Congress, that attendees could explore for an overview of the history and preservation of lesbian bars in the U.S. What’s more, a vintage arcade game was on-site at each location, allowing attendees to explore the Lesbian Bar Project’s metaverse bar, presented by Jägermeister, on-site.
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“We wanted to bring the screenings, but also this celebration of what this storytelling meant, not only the highlighting of the venues and the owners, but also the stories that they tell about the role the community plays in keeping them going every day,” says Cliff Rigano, creative director-culture, content and experiential marketing at Mast-Jägermeister U.S. “So we wanted there to be an in-real-life component; that was really important. And then we wanted to make sure that we had enough components to interest people who might not be able to be there.”
Consumers could enter a sweepstakes for a chance to fly to New York and have dinner with filmmakers Erica Rose and Elina Street, who established the Lesbian Bar Project, as well as executive producer Lea DeLaria. But for those who didn’t get to interact IRL, and as a means of continuing the conversation, Jäger created what it bills as the first-ever safe space in the metaverse.
The virtual lesbian bar and hangout, hosted in Decentraland (coordinates: -53, -84) through the end of the year, allows users to enter with their avatars and play games to collect NFT wearables, and check out a virtual version of the Lesbian Bar Project Museum featuring photos lining the walls of the virtual environment. Those who visited during a specific period in October could catch curated artist performances and meetups hosted within the space. In addition, Jägermeister crafted exclusive bottle labels for its Mini Meisters product that highlighted each city the docuseries was filmed in, allowing metaverse attendees to easily dip back out to Web 2.0 and visit an e-commerce retailer to buy the limited-edition merchandise.
“It’s a first for us, really dialing in a Web3 e-commerce opportunity, not just a wearable or lifestyle item, but to be able to actually buy product so that you could consume a shot while you were in the metaverse, which is getting down the funnel of conversion,” says Rigano. Agency: Young Hero (creative agency and metaverse development).
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