Rainbow Pride or Rainbow-washing?
How do brands leverage Pride Month without being accused of rainbow-washing?
Every June, countless brands recolor their logo with the rainbow spectrum and many of them even launch new or limited-edition products with the seven-color pattern. All those actions are for one purpose: celebrating Pride Month. It is undoubtedly a good moment for companies to explicitly show their support to the LGBT+ community. However, as an increasing number of players are joining this trend, Pride Month is becoming more and more commercial. Furthermore, consumers are starting to question the business intention behind this rainbow trend. Without having authentic links to LGBT+ people, corporations can be accused of exploiting this minority group. Thus, it is critical to address the question of how to properly leverage this gender and identity issue without being under an accusation of “rainbow-washing”.
Origin of Pride Month
In the 1960s, the LGBT+ community was highly oppressed in the US. The police could arrest homosexual and transgender people and even force them to have treatments in the hospital. During that time, the police raid was common for gay bars. On June 28th, 1969, the police came to the Stonewall Inn, one of the biggest gay bars in New York at that time, without informing the bar beforehand. The bosses and some clients of the bar refused to be checked and later had a serious fight with the police. And finally, this conflict became a huge protest which lasted six days. The Stonewall riots are considered one of the most iconic social movements for LGBT+ rights in history. June, the month when this historical event happened, is therefore linked to this community. In 1999, President Clinton issued a proclamation recognizing June as “Gay and Lesbian Pride Month”. Later, President Obama officially declared June as LGBT Pride Month during his presidency from 2009 to 2017. Since then, the idea of Pride Month has been popularized.
LGBT+ consumer’s potential
The number of companies implementing marketing strategies targeting the LGBT+ community is increasing. The reason behind this phenomenon is very clear: it can bring incredible sales. According to LGBT Capital, non-heterosexual consumers are highly potential because they are estimated to have 3.9 trillion USD in purchasing power across the globe in 2019. As more and more consumers tend to buy products from the brands sharing the same values with them, it is unsurprising that LGBT+ people are more willing to be the clients of the companies supporting their community. As a result, corporations must embed specific tactics to explicitly show their supportive position toward those people in order to attract them. Moreover, they are a valuable consumer segment for e-commerce which is one of the most important businesses in the near future as digital transformation is accelerated by the coronavirus crisis. Research shows that they spend 35% more on online shopping than their heterosexual counterpart. Finally, they are the group where brands can more easily reach young generations. Ipsos MORI indicates that only 66% of Gen Z consider themselves “purely heterosexual”. This percentage is higher than all of the previous generations, which means they are more likely to be a part of the LBGT+ community.
Rainbow, not a must for Pride Month
The most common way that brands participate in the celebration of Pride Month is to redesign the color of their products or logo with the rainbow spectrum. Some of them even launch new rainbow-colored items exclusively for this event. Skittles, an American fruit-flavored candy brand, has also modified its product color for Pride Month but in a different and creative way. As its signature colorful candies have already included all the rainbow colors, it is hard for this company to differentiate its pride products from its ordinary ones by adding more colors. As a result, Skittles decided to remove all the colors of its candies and turned them all in white when it joined the London Pride in 2016. With the slogan “GIVE THE RAINBOW, TASTE THE RAINBOW”, it highlighted the exclusive connection between the LGBT+ community and the colors of the rainbow. This action had huge success with more than 30M impressions in a weekend. Making its candies monochrome has later become the brand’s annual global campaign in Pride Month. This year, Skittles turned its candies into gray and teams up with several local LGBT+ artists to create murals showing their supports. Additionally, 1 USD (and up to 100K USD in total) from every sold limited-edition will be donated to GLAAD, an NGO dedicated to fighting against defamatory coverage of the LGBT+ community.
Besides changing colors, words can also be strong media for Pride campaigns. Balenciaga launched its Pride 2021 capsule collection with a wide range of apparel products, from baseball caps to hoodies and shirts, and even thongs and jockstraps. The most attractive thing about this new collection is that this luxury maison puts the word “GAY” directly on clothing. This explicitly shows its position in favor of LGBT+ people in a bold way. Balenciaga has gone even further in its Spring 2022 show where it launches a red mermaid dress. The design is inspired by the outfit worn by Divine, the most legendary figure in drag queen history when he performed in the cult movie, Pink Flamingos. This luxury brand proves that understanding the history of the LGBT+ community is also a powerful way to support them.
More than visual stimulation
Launching an initiative relevant to LGBT+ people is also a way to show brands’ support. In Brazil, the expression “Essa Coca é Fanta” (That Coke is a Fanta) was often used to make a joke on non-heterosexual people on the Internet. Coca-Cola seized this chance and created a limited-edition Coke: a Coca-Cola can but with Fanta soda inside. This unique product was launched on international LGBT Pride Day in 2017 and had quickly become popular. By using the slogan “Essa Coca é Fanta, e Daí?” (That Coke is a Fanta, so what?), the brand has successfully transformed this discrimination expression into a popular idiom for LGBT+ people to express their confidence in being who they are. This creative campaign has generated more than 1B media impressions.
Rainbow-washing
When more and more companies join the trend of Pride Month, consumers are becoming increasingly skeptical about their intentions behind it. Thus, people are starting to carefully examine every step that enterprises are taking when addressing this social issue. If any action is not aligned with companies’ statements of supporting the LGBT+ community, they will be accused of “rainbow-washing” meaning that brands are merely using this social buzz to sell more products and create a better image without truly supporting and helping those people. Many corporations have been criticized for exploiting the popularity of Pride Month to achieve their commercial purpose. According to BBC, H&M, Primark, and Levi’s produced their pride collection partly in the countries where homosexuality is illegal. Even though all of these three brands claimed that they donated to NGOs to help improve the condition of homosexual people in those countries, they were still considered bad practices. There are also some corporations doing rainbow-washing in more an implicit way. A study found that 25 companies donated to anti-LGBT+ politicians while claiming publicly they are supporting this community. Google, Amazon, and Facebook, three of the 4 leading tech giants in the world, are all named by this research.
Ways to avoid rainbow-washing
Regardless of the risk of being accused of rainbow-washing, corporations still need to address this issue because being LGBT+ friendly is also considered a part of sustainability. There are several ways to avoid being criticized for exploiting the non-heterosexual community.
1. NGOs collaboration
Collaborating with LGBT+ organizations should be included in brands’ pride campaigns. By doing so, companies can not only help this minority group improve its condition but also make consumers witness that they are working on changing society.
2. Task-oriented actions
Corporations should be more task-oriented. This means they should help raise awareness of the challenges that non-heterosexual people are currently facing instead of merely making them more presented without any specific purpose. For example, Absolut., an alcohol brand, launched its Kiss with Pride campaign in 2017. By having people from the countries where homosexuality is illegal participate in its advertisement video, this company aims to make consumers aware that many people are still living in unfriendly environments in the world.
3. Diversity of the LGBT+ community
It is necessary to be careful about the diversity within the LGBT+ community. People have been criticizing that existing related campaigns are mostly from white gay people’s perspectives. However, in this community, there are many different subgroups that also need to be seen. Savage x Fenty has taken this concern into account in its 2021 Pride collection. People with different gender identities, sexual orientations, and skin colors are all presented. And this campaign also teams up with the NGOs exclusively dedicated to helping people of color in the LGBT+ community.
4. Engaging donation process
Brands should make consumers participate in the donation process. Instead of merely donating a limited amount of money to NGOs, corporations can create a mechanism that clearly shows how much money from clients will go to those organizations. For instance, Levi’s announces that it is donating 100% of net proceeds from its 2021 Pride Collection sales to OutRight Action International, the organization aiming to improve LGBT+ rights across the globe. With this policy, consumers can feel being part of the donation activity because their money will go to this association. And they are therefore directly helping the non-heterosexual community.
5. Impacts of LGBT+ influencers
Brands can leverage the impacts of LGBT+ influencers and have them speak out their standpoints regarding being non-heterosexual. The words spoken by those people are usually more persuasive and authentic than the statement launched by companies. Versace has smartly used the power of celebrity by collaborating with Lady Gaga and her Born This Way Foundation which is working on helping improve the condition of the LGBT+ community.
6. Long-term mission
Brands must always remember that supporting the LGBT+ people is not a mission that should be done only in June. Their actions should always be aligned with their supportive position. Furthermore, there are many different periods or dates are focusing on this minority group at both the international and national levels. Thus, companies don’t have to launch their campaign specifically in June. Other dates, such as Trans Awareness Month, can also be included.
Beyond the rainbow
There are still many difficulties in implementing LGBT+ centric campaigns, especially, in the countries where homosexuality is illegal. In China, for example, being in same-sex relationships is legal, but it is forbidden to podcast relevant content on television and in movies. However, it doesn’t mean that corporations should be stopped themselves from showing their supports. In 2020, Nike was one of the biggest sponsors of Shanghai Pride which is canceled because of the pressure from the local government. Joining the trend of Pride Month is not the only way to show brands’ friendliness toward LGBT+ people. And consumers are also looking forward to seeing companies make authentic contributions to this community instead of merely wagging their rainbow flag.
