The Pride month either pride month as it is also known in Spanish, it is an annual celebration that takes place throughout the month of June, with the aim of making visible the efforts of the LGBTQ+ community and the search for policies that favor integration and inclusion.
comes the Pride month and during the month we see many companies change their logo to include the colors of the LGBTQ+ flag. More and more brands are speaking out in favor of diversity and see this as an opportunity to connect with the audience and generate loyalty in their consumers, but what lies beyond this change of colors? Is there really an effort behind?
We talked with , a renowned speaker, technologist and activist within the LGBTQ+ movement, about the approach of brands to Pride month and she shared with us a series of valuable tips and reflections that it is necessary to consider if you want to create a good advertising or marketing campaign aimed at the
What is Pride Month?
Pride month or Mes del Orgullo as it is also known in Spanish, is an annual celebration that takes place throughout the month of June, in commemoration of the events that occurred on June 28, 1969 in the United States, where members of the community LGBTQ+ responded to a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a bar that served as a shelter for the community, located in the Greenwich area of Manhattan.
Today, Pride month is a month dedicated to making visible the efforts of the LGBTQ+ community in favor of civil rights and the search for policies that favor integration and inclusion. It is also a month of reflection on those goals achieved, but also spaces that are still pending to be conquered. Above all, it is a month of celebration of individuality, acceptance of diversity and those qualities that make members of the LGBTQ+ community unique for which they should feel proud, loved, authentic and free.
Why campaign for Pride Month?
In Ophelia’s words, “the issue is that brands are not entities that float in the ether, those brands are managed by people and among those people, on many occasions, if not always, there are gay people. (…) Brands should understand that diversity is an operational issue, it is not a communication issue, but that they do it from communication, seems to me to be a spectacular first, second or third step. I don’t care what they say, I prefer to have bad representations than not to have them at all.”
“Uploading your brand to pride month is a first step (of many) to support diversity, it is also a way of saying that your business is open to inclusive policies, although precisely this also commits to making internal changes or acquiring a policy LGBTQ+ for those who collaborate with you.”
Ophelia Pastrana
“If a brand gets on the march and is doing rainbow washing, it is easier to collect from them. If he did rainbow washing, you can charge him double, while if he’s not even interested in the issue of diversity, do you know what they’re going to say? “We have nothing to do with it.”
What is rainbow washing?
rainbow washing is that practice carried out by companies, corporations and even people who call themselves allies and place the colors of the LGBTQ+ flag in their communication, but they do not do tangible work for LGBTQ+ communities.
This practice has become quite common, in markets around the world, including in Mexico, in which businesses speak out in favor of diversity and inclusion through campaigns apparently aimed at the pink market, however they do not contain a background translated into palpable actions.
How to identify the rainbow wash?
- “The first thing is to see if the people telling the story are not the people in the story being told, it’s that easy.”
- “If the message is made for the hegemonic people, it is most likely rainbow washing.”
- “If the entire work team is straight and they say “gays are welcome”, there are elements that are missing in the message.”
- “For people who are not from the group that is telling it, it is very evident that it is rainbow washing, especially if it is not a story that dignifies or informs.”
“Sometimes it’s not just having inclusion, but the story being compatible with what’s coming from who’s sharing it. It is not only about putting an LGBTQ+ person there, but that this person is in a dignified, valid position and sharing something that is personal, internal, or that is part of the diversified spaces as well.”
Ophelia Pastrana
For example, the movie the danish girlif you notice it is not about the trans person, the danish girl it’s about how non-trans people suffer because a person transitions. It focuses a lot on her partner and they sell it to us as a so-called supportive transgender film and it is, because it’s a bad representation and I’d rather have that than not, but the film reduces trans people to their transition. It tells us nothing about Liliana’s paintings, work and spectacular things. The whole idea around this diversity is not about the trans person, but about her wife and that she suffers a lot.”
“There it is clear that the audience they expect to consume this is the hegemonic audience. They are not really making a product, by and for LGBTQ+ people, but they are doing something to inform non-LGBTQ+ people what it is like to be LGBTQ+”
the danish girl It is a film that, words more or less, serves to tell straight people that being trans is suffering and that seems rude to me, but in order to understand that, it is very likely that you have had to live within diversity.
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What is the danger of rainbow washing?
- “It perpetuates power dynamics, and we could even talk about empowering them, because badly run, it makes companies feel like they did something, but eventually they go and discriminate.”
- “They misinform and devalue the battles, because sometimes as individuals we have been trying to communicate something for a long time and suddenly a very large hegemonic company arrives and says something else and how do you fight against it? How do you disarm them, if they are not going to listen to you, if you do not have the platform that the companies have?”
- “It invites people of diversity to trust and then betray them.”
“It happens to me a lot when a company puts up its LGBTQ+ logo, holds a talk, a conference and gets many trans people to subscribe, but the first email that trans women receive is “Welcome, Gina!” and it is a disappointment. For trans people, if they misgender you, you take it as a lack of respect, because no matter how many attempts are made, everyone wants to misgender them and deny their identity.”
“It goes without saying that the rainbow washing has so much validity, since for a person who is not diverse, even if it is a lie, he is supporting diversity and that still helps.”
How to avoid rainbow washing?
Fighting exclusion
“The first way to avoid it is to think that approaching Pride Month makes them diverse companies. (…) And we think that diversity is about inclusion, Of course, inclusion efforts must be made, but the issue is that exclusion must also be combated.”
“If you as a brand think that having an LGBTQ+ recruiting effort is all there is to it, like raising the flag, then you’re missing the half, the hard part. If you want your company to hire women, you don’t necessarily have to have a diversity effort, you have to fire misogynists, do I explain myself? If you eliminate the exclusion, the inclusion is natural.”
Creating better internal policies for all
“The most common mistake is to think that facing diversity is simply opening doors, when the truth is, facing social diversity is making internal policies so that hating people cannot have so much power.”
“If you set up a line for complaints and reports of harassment then it will be a safer place for women, instead of telling HR to hire more women. If you set up a space so that free and open discussions can be held about diverse ideas, then again you are helping diversity, even if you have not hired a person, because there are many diverse people hired in these companies, they just do not accept it And that’s exactly where you have to have the conversation.”
How to make an inclusive pride month campaign?
Add actions to communication
“It should definitely have a lot more internal processes. I accept that a company says super, super light things and then takes money that is generated from that and donates it to a foundation. That to me helps.”
Empower and give voice to those who need to be heard
“A good ad campaign is about letting people internally talk about what your company is doing and empowering that.”
“There is a lot of power behind giving your diverse employees a voice so everyone can tell their story in empowered ways. If the brand is telling a story about poor Carlos who came out of the closet but is now a very happy person because he found himself, he saw himself in front of the mirror, he cried one day, he put on makeup and it turns out that this was his true self and not they have no inside story of an employee experiencing that, we have a theme.”
Make efforts from education and empathy
“Communication that serves to educate people, I also welcome it, that can be a good advertising campaign, although again, I think that communication that serves to inform LGBTQ+ people, about LGBTQ+ issues, could have much more power. ”
Support and invest in the talent of members of the LGBTQ+ community
“I am aware of the issue of how brands and the media also hold LGBTQ+ events, forums, panels and others and do not pay the people who attend who are diverse. There are people who don’t hire them all year long, except for pride month. It is impressive that in pride hire us to speak well of brands, in a forum or on a panel, and there is not even a symbolic payment.”
“I would like to see a little more investment in people of diversity. Sometimes concerts or events are held and they put on a person who is not LGBTQ+, but who LGBTQ+ people like and you are left thinking: “Why are LGBTQ+ artists not so present?” Well, because not even in Pride Month do they give them the opportunity.”
“Of course I appreciate, accept and welcome false spaces, which suddenly take and hang an LGBTQ+ flag on the door, because that flag has power, however I believe that when it comes to communicating diversity, it is necessary to understand that what matters more are the actions, than what is said.”
Ophelia Pastrana
In conclusion…
“I think this is like the story of the good leader, if you have to…
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