Despite how urgently Canadian Blood Services needs donations, it still doesn’t take donations from an estimated 300,000 Canadians simply because they are gay. This stems from a stigma dating back to the 1980s when the LGBT community was in the depths of the AIDS crisis. Canadian Blood Services has been taking steps to being more inclusive, lifting the ban on donations from gay men in 2013… as long as they have been abstinent for the previous five years. To highlight just how ridiculous the ban is, the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion teamed with Rethink on a new PSA that shows exactly what it would look like if gay blood cells were different from the rest of the population, as the ban seems to imply. After you watch the spot and stop dancing, the CCDI encourages Canadians to tweet at Canadian Blood Services directly (@itsinyoutogive) with “#EndTheBan.”

[iframe_youtube video = “i7Mlq9PEWqI”]

Credits:

Brand: The Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI)
Agency: Rethink
Creative Director: Chris Staples / Ian Grais
Art Director: Leia Rogers
Writer: Morgan Tierney
Broadcast Producer (in house): Laura Rioux
Account Director: Dan Culic
Content Strategist: Leah Gregg
Director: Stuart Gillies
Editor: Megan Bodaly
Line Producer: Wayne Kozak
Audio Engineer: Matt Smalley
Audio House: Kozmic Sound
Animator: Alex Greenberg, Hardedge Creative