This article outlines four key questions brands should answer when launching an LGBTQ+ digital marketing campaign this World Pride Month. Read to learn more

What is World Pride Month?

World Pride Month has been celebrated every year since the 1970s to honour the 1969 Stonewall uprising in Manhattan. Pride Month and the LGBTQ+ community have evolved over the years and its meaning and significance has changed over the past 5 decades. What once was a month to celebrate gay and lesbian people and fight for their rights has now evolved to include the entire spectrum represented in the LGBTQ+ community, which has blossomed into an intersectional pocket of society. Naturally, companies want to show their support for the LGBTQ+ community by launching digital ad campaigns during Pride Month. As a digital marketing team who only have the best intentions, it can be surprising and disappointing when your carefully planned and orchestrated ad gets put on trial on social media as its accused of virtue signalling, pinkwashing and as another attempt to exploit the LGBTQ+ community. But how can this Twitter tribunal be prevented? As a digital marketer, it is imperative to ask yourself and your team these four questions: 

1. Is your digital marketing team representative?

First of all, take a look at your own digital marketing team and question how representative you are of the LGBTQ+ community. Are there any LGBTQ+ members on your team? And if so, is the representation intersectional? Intersectionality in the LGBTQ+ community aims to acknowledge the diverse experiences and identities that go beyond the privilege of a white, cisgender, able-bodied middle class gay man. It includes identities from different races, genders and other marginalised communities that exist within the LGBTQ+ community. To avoid being another ‘pinkwashing’ digital marketing scandal, hire people who understand and experience LGBTQ+ issues themselves. 

Marketing campaigns and ads appeal to audiences when they reflect reality and can imagine your product or service as an addition to that reality. 

Successful marketing campaigns are all about digital story telling. Advertisements use relatable scenarios to appeal to the audience, allowing for potential buyers to imagine your product or service as an addition to their own reality. Therefore, your Pride Month campaign should reflect the reality of the LGBTQ+ community and not a whitewashed version from the perspective of homogenous marketing team with limited knowledge on the community. But how can you ensure your team is diverse to avoid this issue?

Consider asking yourself if your team members identify with any of the following LGBTQ+ identities; 

• Queer/homosexual
• Bisexual/ pansexual/ demisexual
• Asexual 
• Gender non-binary/ non-conforming/ agender 
• Transgender/ transmasc/ transfemme 
• POC (Person of colour) 
• Member of the LGBTQ+ community with a disability
• Multicultural and multilingual members who understand the global cultural significance of LGBTQ+ advertising

If your digital marketing team is not representative of the culturally rich and diverse LGBTQ+ community, it may be worth wondering if the team is equipped to create a digital marketing campaign for Pride Month and advertise to the LGBTQ+ community. Click here to find out more about digital story telling.

2. Are you really being inclusive?

Representation goes far beyond the acronym and this is where many digital ads are failing. The trope of the cisgendered, white gay couple is ‘palitable’ to a wider audience but it’s a slap in the face for the LGBTQ+ community. Take a look at this statistic: 

“Just 19% of people featured in advertising are from minority groups, and of those, only 0.06% are from the LGBT community despite this group making up 1.7% of the British population”

Lloyds Banking Group (2016)

Slapping a rainbow on your product simply isn’t enough to be inclusive. It’s time to think outside the box and branch out. Representation means people with disabilities, mixed-race couples, spanning socioeconomic boundaries and giving visibility to members of the transgender community. Inclusivity can do more than just win the hearts and minds of customers, it can actually win you some clicks! Popular keywords in the LGBTQ+ community such as non-binary, transgender, questioning, pansexual and neopronouns will you apart from the rainbow wave of Pride campaigns and will see your SEO results skyrocket. 

3. Are you working for or leveraging from the LGBTQ+ community?

Your ad campaign will likely fall flat when your brand does not support the LGBTQ+ community in other ways.

Some questions you should ask before launching your digital marketing campaign:

• Does your company support LGBTQ+ charities? 
• Could your brand showcase LGBTQ+ art? 
• Do you support LGBTQ+ rights and movements? 

The moral of the story is, you need more than just representation to find yourselves amongst this list of companies. Don’t just be an ally to the LGBTQ+ community but use your brand and resources to make a real difference. 

4. Is your brand associated with homophobic companies? 

This might seem like an obvious question but a surprising number of well-known brands have been blacklisted for supporting anti-LGBTQ+ movements. Boycotting Chick-Fil-A isn’t simply isn’t enough. Do your research, as even a quick Google search uncovers a shocking number of brands which have now become enemies of the community. 

So, is a Pride Month digital marketing campaign worth it? 

If the digital marketing team needs to ask themselves this many questions, is LGBTQ+ digital marketing even worth it? Well let the numbers speak for themselves: 

“Annual viewership of LGBT content on YouTube grew 76% in 2016 and is expected to reach nearly 5B views in 2017”

Brendan Snyder (2017)

With a potential digital audience of 5 billion people, getting LGBTQ+ digital marketing right could make or break a campaign. Don’t be another addition to the list of the worst marketing campaigns of all time. Do your research, ask yourselves these questions and launch a campaign which inspires people and cements your brand’s reputation as working with and for the LGBTQ+ community both during World Pride Month and all year round. Whether the ad be on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram or even a brief few seconds on TikTok, the eyes of the world are on you and your brand’s image and reputation hangs in the balance.

References

Betz, S., 21 Companies Showing Support for the LGBTQ+ Community Every Day. Built In. Available at: https://builtin.com/diversity-inclusion/companies-that-support-lgbtq 

Ennis, D., 2019. Don’t Let That Rainbow Logo Fool You: These 9 Corporations Donated Millions To Anti-Gay Politicians. Forbes. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnstaceyennis/2019/06/24/dont-let-that-rainbow-logo-fool-you-these-corporations-donated-millions-to-anti-gay-politicians/?sh=2881d76b14a6 

Fiorillo, V., 2019. Boycotting Chick-fil-A? Here Are 243 Other Companies You Might Want to Avoid. Philadelphia Magazine. Available at: https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/04/01/chick-fil-a-boycott/ 

Snyder B., 2017. How the LGBT Community Responds to LGBT-Themed Ads – Think with Google. Google. Available at: https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/future-of-marketing/management-and-culture/diversity-and-inclusion/lgbt-advertising-engagement-youtube-data/

Hadfield, R., 2020. A Corporate Guide to Pride Month. ZoomInfo Blog. Available at: https://blog.zoominfo.com/corporate-guide-pride/ 

Lloyds Banking Group., 2016. Reflecting modern Britain. Reflecting modern Britain – Lloyds Banking Group plc. Available at: https://www.lloydsbankinggroup.com/assets/pdfs/who-we-are/responsible-business/inclusion-and-diversity/modern-britain-5.12-single-pages.pdf [Accessed May 3, 2021].

Mann, B.S., 2020. LGBT Research: LGBTQ Marketing: LGBT consulting: LGBTQ Insights. Community Marketing, Inc. Available at: https://www.communitymarketinginc.com/documents/temp/CMI-13th_LGBTQ_Community_Survey_US_Profile.pdf 

Times, G. et al., 2018. 10 of the best LGBTQ inclusive commercials. GAY TIMES. Available at: https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/culture/10-of-the-best-gay-inclusive-commercials/.