Time to rethink purpose
Pride month is proving to be a bellwether for companies’ cause commitment
Last year, marketers knew Pride Month was going to be different. The Bud Light/Dylan Mulvaney brouhaha was in full swing. Target saw backlash at their stores for promoting Pride merch front and center. And staid trade magazine, Ad Age, warned marketers to be prepared.
This year, marketers went running for the hills. Target, of course, is the prime example. Where once their Pride merch met customers at the door—one might say “out and proud”—this year small displays are hidden in the back and only in a small percentage of their stores.
Target hid their Pride merchandise, placing it in fewer stores and in less visible locations.
A few other companies flew the Pride flag, but it’s more like a limp wave than a full-throated show of support. And, that of course assumes you can find it to begin with. I couldn’t. I had to hunt for pro-LGBTQ promotion.
First, I went to Ad Age to see what they were writing about. They had a list of about a dozen campaigns. Some of which were, frankly, so insider I didn’t understand them—more on that in a minute. Only a few were from big-name brands.
Max and Skittles. Skittles was doing a traditional cause marketing campaign where you buy their Pride candy pack and the company donates $1 to GLAAD up to $100,000. Skittles also provided matching donations to GLAAD up to $25,000 to support efforts to fight discrimination of the LGBTQ+ community. Max highlighted queer content, curating recommendations under Pride-based themes like “Presenting with Pride” and “Beyond the Binary.”
Other campaigns on the Ad Age list appeared to be foundations or organizations that were already preaching to the choir. Among them: NYX Cosmetics, Grindr, and The National Women’s Soccer League. This is nice, but where are all the corporate allys? Are they all gone the way of the dodo?
I stumbled on a Thread claiming 25 companies that promoted Pride were also donating to anti-LGBTQ+ politicians. Not great, truly. But, who were these companies and why hadn’t I seen the advertising?
The post was the work of Judd Legum and his “Popular Information” blog. In a post entitled, These 25 rainbow-flag waving companies donated $18 million to anti-gay politicians since the last election, Legum and his colleagues list companies that have at some time promoted being pro-LGBTQ on one hand while donating to anti-LGBTQ interests on the other. The companies’ duplicity not withstanding, not all that promotion happened this year—and this is key.
Companies analyzed included Deloitte, AT&T, United Health, and Comcast, which in comparison to Target and Bud Light are not exactly consumer-facing. Walmart was on the list with their “Pride Always” merchandise, but you have to know it’s there to find it. Pride does not immediately appear on the company’s home page. The same is true for the mass drugstore CVS.
The invisibility of Pride in consumer spaces is happening at the same time as anti-trans legislation continues apace. In 2024, according to translegislation.com, 604 anti-trans bills in 43 states have been introduced that seek “to block trans people from receiving basic healthcare, education, legal recognition, and the right to publicly exist.” The ACLU provides a map of anti-LGBTQ legislation, showing 523 pieces of legislation against this community.
As I wrote in the Daily News: “Companies don’t sell Pride merchandise or create parade floats because they are committed to the cause. They do it because the LGBTQ community is the fastest growing minority group in the country per Census data, representing $1.4 trillion in annual consumer spending. Waving the rainbow flag also helps sales with the rest of their consumer base as 79% of Americans support LGBTQ rights and taking a stance on social issues is particularly salient for millennials and Gen Z.”
I expected companies to pull back. I didn’t expect them to disappear.
I find the lack of Pride imagery this year disturbing. When the community is being attacked from so many sides, being visible in any and every place—not just “safe spaces”—should be normalized. We lose some of that when companies no longer fly the flag.
But I also believe that companies being forced to reassess their values is a good thing. Companies should only connect their brand to a cause when the company is willing to full-out commit to it. This commitment includes not only merchandise but ways to create impact—positive social change—both in and outside the organization.
This is more true of Pride than other causes. That’s because Pride is not simply another opportunity for “feel good” marketing. Pride is a revolutionary battle for identity and being an ally cuts deeper than parade floats and rainbow t-shirts.