How Brands Celebrated Pride Month in June 2022?

Source: Pexels

What is Pride Month?

Pride Month is celebrated each year in the month of June. This month is dedicated to celebrating LGBTQIA+ communities from around the world.

The Stonewall riots which took place during this month in 1969 paved way for a lot of changes for people in America and all across the globe.

How is it celebrated?

Colourful parades, marches, talks, webinars, concerts and much more. The definition of how Pride Month is celebrated has gone quite a lot of changes due to the recent pandemic, lockdown restrictions, work from home and other global & economical changes. With online speakers, hand drawn paintings/pictures, online fundraisers, colourful rainbow flag clad balconies to lit up buildings; we just keep seeing new creative ways of celebrating this month each year.

Why do brands participate in celebrating Pride Month?

Few brands genuinely want to make an impact and help the LGBTQIA+ community. Others see it as a PR opportunity to gain more followers or engagement on their account. Rest might just be jumping on a trend with no real focus.

We see majority of brands now updating their logos during Pride Month. Mark Ritson explains why doing this is no longer helping brands to make any impact and it is seen more of a rainbow-washing campaign strategy. He gives an example of how the brand M&S got into trouble adopting this strategy. 

What is rainbow washing campaigns?

In simple words, when brands just update the logo colours with no real intentions of making any impact is what I would call rainbow-washing. The end goal is to look good, sell more, advertise more and make a profit out of this campaign. 

Nicoleta explains really well what rainbow-washing is and how you can avoid it in the blog link below: https://www.tokinomo.com/blog/rainbow-washing-in-retail

Brands who celebrated Pride Month in June, 2022 the right way

In this blog I have outlined and listed a few brands who I think have celebrated Pride Month to make a real impact and show support to the community. 

I have used the acronym LGBTQIA+ in this blog many times, in case you want to know what each of the letter stands for, check this blog: https://bestlifeonline.com/what-lgbtqia-means/

1. Sharing educational content

Sesame Street shared some great educational content about the Pride Flag. Smart use of graphics which linked to their brand, colourful images & icons and the design made it easy to follow and read. This tweet has got 578 comments, 29.4K Retweets and 107.2K Likes. Those stats are sure to make any social media manager's day. They have used one relevant hashtag on the post and kept it simple.

Ideas: Your brand can do something similar all year round. Have a day in the week to post educational content on your social channels, websites about Pride inclusivity. Create engaging, graphical, educational content for your social media community and staff members to keep the conversation going. 

Source: Sesame Street Twitter

2.  Product Updates 

Whereby a video conferencing and screen sharing platform. They introduced a product modification on their video conferencing platform by giving users the option to add new Pride backgrounds on their meetings or waiting room. An innovative approach to show that the brand is inclusive and wants to support Pride Month. 

Ideas: Brands across the globe could take and implement this idea at any time of the year. You could have Pride backgrounds embedded on your video conferencing software and platform to show support  to the LGBTQIA+ employees & community. You could have these backgrounds on while on any internal/external calls, workshop or training sessions. Easy to implement and maximum impact is assured with this idea.

Source: Whereby Twitter

3. Promoting LGBTQIA+ Businesses

Etsy is a global online store where creators from around the world come to buy, sell and collect unique items. Etsy's idea on celebrating Pride Month is a clear winner because it is promoting business owners from the LGBTQIA+ communities. They have done so by creating dedicated landing page on their website to showcase all products from the LGBTQIA+ creatives.

Ideas: Show year round support to businesses owned by LGBTQIA+ members, work with them, promote their products & services, like & share their posts, give them the opportunity to interact with your community. Helping these businesses increase their reach, social media following and profits is much better way of helping this community rather than just a logo colour change. Have a dedicated social post which highlights a LGBTQIA+ business once a week or as frequently as you can. Speak to their founders and share their journey with your community.

Source: Etsy Twitter

4. Volunteering to support a LGBTQIA+ Charity

Verusen a materials data management company using artificial intelligence found a more involved idea to participate in Pride Month, 2022. The company let's it's employees use their organisational skills to help a thrift store, Lost-n-Found Youth who provide safety and shelter for Atlanta's LGBT homeless youth.

Ideas: Support a local charity who provide support to LGBTQIA+ community part of your CSR activities all year round? Companies could provide a list of charities their staff can volunteer at, and then the staff can choose a charity of their choice and volunteer at the charity once a month. A better idea of showing the impact of this initiative would to be share the total hours volunteered and how your company has helped local LGBTQIA+ charities. Share your results in June, to showcase the actual work you have put in.

Source: Versusen Twitter

5. Sharing stories of personalities who have shaped the movement

The Minority Veterans of America shared about a LGBTQIA+ personality who has contributed and been a part of the movement. The campaign "Roots in Riots" highlighted the personalities who paved the way for conversations, progress and change within the society. Highlighting and remembering such hero's is a unique way to celebrate the Pride month.

Ideas: Brands can take inspiration from this and keep sharing stories about such personalities all year round. Interview people who either participated, contributed or were involved in the Riot movement which paved the path for changes. Give them the platform and coverage to share their stories to explain the difference between then and now and what further changes are needed.

Source: Minority Vets, Twitter

6. Setting up charity fundraisers

University of Maryland Prevention Research centre setup a charity fund raising activity to raise money to provide LGBTQIA+ competency training for mental health support providers. To raise funds for an important and usually forgotten topic of LGBTQIA+ health equity does have an high impact rate. 

Ideas: Brands can setup charity fundraisers all year round to support LGBTQIA+ charities or charities supporting this community. Involve your staff, suppliers and community to participate in the fund raising activity. Getting everyone involved helps improve employee engagement and  shows your brand actually wants to do something to support the LGBTQIA+ community.

Source: University of Maryland Preventive Research, Twitter

7. Asking what Pride means to their community and staff

African Queer Youth Initiative's is non-profit organisation which supports youth with resources & tools to advocate for their rights. They asked their community about what Pride means to them. On the post, in the screenshot below they share a story from Eddie. They have named the series as "Pride Month" interview. They have asked questions like what an inclusive society looks like and many other thought-provoking questions. Not only are these posts useful for everyone, but it highlights the challenges LGBTQIA+ communities go through and what challenges they would like to see.

Ideas: Brands can take and further develop this idea. You can have a special submission portal or landing page where any member of LGBTQIA+ community can share their story anonymously or named. Give them your social platform to share their thoughts, ideas and challenges every single month of the year. Stories have an amazing impact to communicate ideas, experiences and lessons; and what better way to reach those who never get an opportunity. This method of collecting UGC ( User Generated Content) is much more real, authentic and will relate with your audience. 

Source: African Youth QI, Twitter

8. Sharing video testimonials 

Arden University's way of celebrating Pride month is a winner for all video lovers. Yes, they have created a special video where one member of their staff shares lived experiences, journey and what Pride month means to them. This video showcases and captures a great story of an individual and spreads the message of why Pride month is so important to the community.

Ideas: Brands can create and engage with such videos all the time. It is not necessary you need to create a brand new video for your brand, but you can make sure to like/share existing stories on your channel. By supporting and sharing such stories you are helping the post reach a much larger audience and that can be your way of contributing to this cause. But, if you are a larger brand and have the budget/time to focus on creating such high quality video content, then go for it and speak to your colleagues/community to capture their stories. 

Source: Arden University, Twitter

I hope you have found this blog helpful. Excited to see more marketers create creative inclusive marketing campaigns.

Which is your favourite strategy from the above listed options, do let me know in the comments below. If you do take an inspiration from these ideas for your brand, I would love to hear from you and see it's impact.