The month of June, which we all know as the pride month, is when people from all over the world show their support to the LGBTQ+ community in the form of ‘Pride’ parades in various nations. The LGBTQ+ community has faced oppression for centuries. What they fight for now is both a social and political awareness for their right to live freely as if they were in the world without discrimination.
Pride Parades take place this month at different locations around the world, not just in the form of a celebration, but more as a way of standing with the community for their rights.
What is Pride month and how did this come into existence? Well, it goes back to the 1960s during the time when it was not a safe environment for gays to live. They had to face harassment, assault, discrimination, and what not! Stonewall Inn, a bar in the city of New York a place where gays used to hang out often. It was common for the local police there to raid the place assaulting them and even arresting them. They had faced this oppression without any retaliation, until 28th June 1969, when they fought back and lashed out at the harassment. There were riots in the city for a few days which came to be known as the Stonewall Uprising. Since then, June has been celebrated as Pride Month in memory of those brave people who fought back for their rights and gave way for the rest of the people to stand for themselves.
Nowadays, numerous brands are entering this bandwagon of Pride Month - changing their logos, flashing rainbow flags on their shops, having a separate Pride collection of products, having rainbow-colored packaging, or even sponsoring Pride parades around the world. But do these brands really support the cause the Pride Month is held for or they are just doing this to cash in on an easy marketing opportunity that can help them add on consumers from the LGBTQ+ community?
Brands like Apple, Uber, Airbnb, Facebook, etc. have stood with the LGBTQ+ community to show their support and identify them as an ally of the consumers of this community. McDonald's has used rainbow-colored packaging for its fries, H&M has added a “pride out loud’ collection in their stores, Nike has been donating sales from their ‘Be True’ campaign since 2012. Many of them have limited edition Pride Month collections in their stores for which the sales are donated for a good cause. But are these brands genuinely supporting the cause or are they just Rainbow-washing?
Take an example of Mars Wrigley’s brand Skittles. Every year since 2017, they have been producing a limited edition Pride Month Skittles pack where the packaging is done in a colorless monochrome pack saying, “Only one Rainbow matters during the Pride”. This year, for each packet sold, they are donating $1 to GLAAD, an NGO and a media organization that stands and works for LGBTQ+ rights. So this is a good thing, that the sales are being donated for the community. Or is it?
Honestly, it’s not about the sales, because most of these organizations make more money or even spend more on their marketing strategies than what they donate. The main point is that they should resonate the support through other forms of their activities throughout the year and not just for this one month when they can show support for this political and social cause, and then not care about it in the next month.
A major multinational sports company has launched a special edition of rainbow-colored merchandise in honor of Pride Month. But looking further, the company was one of the major sponsors of the FIFA Football World cup 2018 which was held in Russia, a country that is known for its strict anti-LGBTQ+ laws. These corporates show that support on the outside can also be filled with emptiness on the inside.
There have been a lot of examples where brands don’t actually work in support of the LGBTQ community, but when it comes to Pride Month, they don’t stop trying to capitalize on the opportunity. Brands should be more inclusive of the community and should be resonating the support that they show in June for the whole year round, making this world a better place for the people who have faced discrimination and oppression all this time. Pride Month has become an easy opportunity for these brands to showcase their rainbow-colored merchandise using a creative marketing idea just to attract consumers from the community and in turn increase their brand’s visibility and sales.
No doubt these brands are helping spread awareness around the world in support of this social and political cause. However, the commercialization of Pride Month has blurred the vision of these brands and they should have clarity on how to support the community in a more inclusive way constantly and not just cash in on this opportunity.
- By Shubham Ande (Batch of 2022)
(The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the LitSoc team.)
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