• by Sam Laubach , July 2, 2023

Over the past few years, the Pride marketing playbook for brands has changed over time.

For instance, the broader adoption of the Progress Pride Flag highlights a more expansive understanding of the LGBTQIA+ community from a brand, signaling a degree of awareness about the community that the regular old rainbow does not.

Unfortunately, for queer folks like me, this year has been one of the worst in a long time. Our rights and our humanity are being called into question and under attack. This violence toward the queer community is also now being projected onto brands when partnering with or promoting anything remotely queer.

And this year, the old playbook didn't work.

If brands had really wanted to show their allyship, 2023 was the year to do it -- loud and proud and supported by credible reasons to believe.

But now we’re more than halfway through the year, with Pride Month in the rearview.

Brands who sought to show up visibly for the LGBTQIA+ community this year needed to show up boldly, bravely, and authentically for the whole community. Allyship, even corporate allyship, is not about picking and choosing which parts of the LGBTQIA+ community are palatable. Spooning the Ls and Gs out of the alphabet soup that is the queer community like a picky toddler is not tolerable. Either queer rights are human rights, or they’re not.

One of the best Pride campaigns this year came from Bombas, a mission-driven clothing brand with a “one purchased = one donated to people facing homelessness” model. Bombas leaned in on its mission to highlight the prevalence of homelessness in the LGBTQIA+ community specifically. The campaign was a good fit for the brand and authentically meaningful for the queer community.

On the other side, there are brands that have been profiting from Pride for years, but, this year, scaled back their operations to appease vocal bigots.

Target significantly reduced its Pride collection, hanging out to dry several queer-owned businesses that had products in the collection. Starbucks, normally a very Prideful brand, is sending mixed signals about the noticeably less Prideful displays present this year -- with corporate HQ saying this year wasn’t any different. But store managers told a different story, and union strikes ensued.

It used to be that brands adopting the rainbow, but not backing it up with meaningful action, were merely performative. Today, these brands are causing actual harm to queer people through their actions or inactions. When massive, powerful corporations cave to violence and hate, it emboldens people to continue this trend of violence and hate toward queer -- and now, more specifically -- trans people.

So, brands, going forward, if you’re bringing us up, you’d better be ready to fight for us, our humanity, and our whole community. Really earn these rainbow dollars! Otherwise, leave us out of it.