The Four 2012, a nationwide gay
marriage campaign, launched on Wednesday.
The nascent group said its social media
campaign aims to support marriage equality in the four states where
it is on the ballot this November.
The Four is co-founded by Brian Ellner,
AllOut.org Executive Director Andre Banks, Purpose CEO Jeremy Heimans
and Ryan Davis, the executive director of social innovation at Blue
State Digital. Ellner masterminded HRC's New York marriage equality
campaign, which raised awareness through a series of videos featuring
prominent celebrities, professional athletes and politicians.
The campaign's first video titled
Momentum features the hit song We Are Young from the
indie-pop group Fun. (The video is embedded on this page. Visit
our video library for more videos.)
“It's Facebook and Twitter meets Rock
the Vote for marriage equality,” said Ellner in a press release.
“We want to energize the young pro-equality voters in the Google
age.”
“The concept is to allow easy sharing
and to syndicate this material over popular social networks,
including Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Instagram, Tumbler and
Pinterest. We will also use smart paid media to promote our most
popular posts, create a network of influencers to amplify the content
and produce new content from some of the hottest Internet stars,”
said Davis.
The group said it would concentrate on
this year's four marriage equality referendums in Maine, Minnesota,
Maryland and Washington state.
Voters in Minnesota will decide on a
constitutional amendment which aims to ban gay marriage in the state,
while Maryland and Washington state voters are being asked to uphold
– or reject – laws legalizing such unions approved by lawmakers.
Maine voters will decide whether to legalize gay nuptials in the
state. If approved, it would become the first state to do so at the
ballot box.
Jason Goldberg, currently the CEO of
Fab.com, the gay social-networking site turned designer wares
discounter, gave the campaign its initial funding.
(On the Net: TheFour2012.com.)