• by Danielle Oster , June 10, 2025

Head of strategy at creative agency Saylor, Raul Rios has seen LGBTQ+ marketing evolve considerably over the course of his career, and served on the boards of organizations including LA Pride, Stanford Pride and AIDS Project Los Angeles.  For Pride Month, Marketing Daily caught up with Rios—to discuss the evolving role of influencer marketing and the importance of authentic LGBTQ+ marketing for brands.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marketing Daily: What kind of opportunities does targeting the LGBTQ+ audience open up for brands?

Raul Rios: There’s a lot of data showing that if we’re going to talk to Gen Z, we need to understand that this generation represents a more fluid audience, in terms of their gender identity and sexual orientation, which is so much more a part of their way of being than prior generations.

When LGBTQ+ audiences see themselves represented authentically, there are so many deeper human truths that are resonant regardless of background.

Non-LGBTQ+ allies can relate to the theme of owning your own truth and journey that is central to many LGBTQ+ stories. There are so many barriers that create boundaries and compartmentalize people in a way that prevents people from understanding what it means to be authentically who they are. It’s kind of an amazing thing that the LGBTQ+ lens can uniquely provide.

Marketing Daily: What are brands missing out on by avoiding speaking to LGTBQ audiences?

Rios: If brands are really looking at younger audiences, and being Gen Z-centric in their strategy, there's a lot of data that shows Gen Z identities as more LGBTQ+ than any prior generation. I see it as more of a Gen Z potential strategy, rather than just an LGBTQ+ approach. If you want to win with this younger generation, you need to see that this is part of who they are and how they see themselves.

Brands that ignore that, or don’t ingest or understand it, lose out on the opportunity of connecting authentically with Gen Z. If you go back to lifetime value, it does limit that emotional connection.

I think that targeted LGBTQ+ marketing or advertising does reap benefits for non-LGBTQ audiences as well. If you look at the role queer and trans communities have played in areas like music, film, fashion, cuisine—these are pillars of culture where queer and trans communities have been pioneers innovating in ways that drive all culture.

Not understanding or investing in the market puts brands at a distance from culture-driving epicenters. It separates them from content creators and influencers who are at the cusp of bringing innovation to multiple categories. That’s where the energy is: investing there is one of the best things a brand can do to invest in its own future and stay relevant. We live in a time when brands can lose relevance quickly if they don't keep that energy going.

If you see that a competitor brand starts to lose share with a group because that audience  recognizes that there isn't that same investment in them, that’s an opportunity for the number two brand to step in and gain that share. That’s what happened with Hennessy and Black audiences, and it took the brand a long time to recover.

Marketing Daily: Are brands underestimating the spending power of LGBTQ+ audiences and the potential consequences of capitulating to anti-LGBTQ+ hate campaigns?

Rios: To some extent: If you look at Target, there has been a shift in how they’re performing financially that’s not just from LGBTQ+ people and communities of color boycotting over the company’s Pride and DEI capitulations, but allies as well. That’s probably where brands are underestimating the impact. There’s not just the queer dollar, but also a larger ecosystem of non-LGBTQ+ people who are allies and do support the community, and those people do vote with their dollars.

Marketing Daily: How would you describe the current landscape for LGBTQ+ influencers?

Rios: We have great data that shows us that when brands leverage influencers in an impactful way, it can move all metrics in the funnel. Particularly with LGBTQ audiences, authentic influencers, and even micro influencers, can have more of an impact than mainstream talent—given their proximity to the audience, their lived experience and relatability, how they understand the dynamics of the narrative. Especially given what we’re seeing happen culturally and politically, the avenues open to influencers will become more important. They can provide a shift in audience and focus in a way that’s different from general media.