To celebrate SkipTheDishes’ new global brand ambassador, Katy Perry, National Picnic Day, Pride, and the brand's support of LGBTQ+ organizations, we launched Pride Picnic with SkipTheDishes: an iconic drag picnic with all the Katy Perry-inspired touches you could possibly imagine: giant swirl ice cream cones, lollipops, and cherries throughout our venue, colourful picnic tables for people to enjoy their curated picnic treats on and the new Skip spot with Katy Perry playing throughout. This Pride drag picnic was purposely positioned to be in line with National Picnic Day (June 18), which also fell during Pride Month, where Torontonians had the chance to book a blanket/spot via OpenTable for our Katy Perry-inspired pride picnic on National Picnic Day. 

We knew community partners would be an important element to bring this campaign to life, which is why we chose to partner with Cafe Neon to help create custom picnic baskets for each guest during the show. Leveraging an existing relationship with a notable restaurant partner like Craig’s Cookies, we were able to create a custom cookie inspired by Katy, which was the cherry on top! Offering all guests in attendance the limited-time flavour, Black Cherry Pie inspired by the Queen of Pop, as well as selling it on the network for a limited time, not only allowed us to add this subtle nod to connect the dots between both partnerships, but also to reach additional LGBTQ+ communities, as proceeds of the cookie’s sales went directly to The 519, a Toronto-based agency aiming to make a real difference in people’s lives, while working to promote inclusion, understanding, and respect. To further extend this partnership, we worked with ET Canada on an integrated segment where Dallas Dixon, Pride Reporter, sat down with Craig Pike from Craig’s Cookies, who acted as a Brand Ambassador, to learn more about his existing relationship with SkipTheDishes and why this partnership meant so much to him and his community.