When Pride Month is across the corner, brands race to develop the perfect Pride Month marketing strategies and campaigns. It’s a time when the LGBTQIA+ community and its allies come together to have fun love, equality, and diversity. However, simply slapping a rainbow flag in your logo is just not enough to resonate with the LGBTQIA+ community.
To create a successful Pride Month marketing campaign, authenticity and solidarity should be the guiding principles; insincere acts don’t resonate with any of the goal audiences. Especially, in the case of generating pseudo support campaigns regarding the LGBTQIA+ community, you lose your audience immediately. That’s not because LGBTQIA+ have a special radar for every thing but because they’re exposed to hate crime and hate speech, even today, and yes, everywhere in the world, forcing people to stay watchful.
Making connections lies at the center of selling, and making people feel worthwhile with real support and meaningful engagement is one step further in the case of developing successful campaigns. Luckily, you’re in the best place to learn more about developing a real and, consequently, successful Pride Month campaign that really connects with the LGBTQIA+ community. Keep reading to learn more about Pride Month marketing and its dos and don’ts. We’re greater than able to share our insights to assist any brand or marketer searching for a chance to make an inclusive campaign with an actual positive impact.
What to Consider When Creating Your Pride Month Strategy
Your Pride Month marketing strategy ought to be 100% sincere and authentic; yes, we’ve already talked about it, but there’s no harm in highlighting it yet one more time, because it’s the important thing to creating a positive change each in your marketing statistics and for the LGBTQIA+ community. But, how will you be certain that?
1. Feature LGBTQIA+ in Your Commercials
Working with privileged heterosexuals or cisgenders and casting them for LGBTQIA+ roles shouldn’t be an option while there are members of the queer community searching for such opportunities. Start featuring LGBTQIA+ this Pride Month and make it a habit; proceed including them in your future projects too. Therefore, you’ll be able to make an actual impact each of their lives and on the normativity level of the society you and your brand interact with.
Let’s see an example:
Here, Smirnoff celebrates Pride Month and promotes its Pride product with this industrial featuring Laverne Cox. Instead of only putting a rainbow on its bottles and doing nothing more, the brand takes its Pride Month campaign seriously, not only by casting a member of the queer community but additionally by elaborately creating the ad copy, which emphasizes that Pride Month and events are the final word places to feel secure, welcomed, included, and free. Hopefully, sooner or later the world will turn out to be such a house for everybody.
2. Be Politically Correct
The terminology you utilize is incredibly essential. I’m sure that you simply won’t misgender someone or say that “she modified her gender” type of stuff, but still, there are another things to take note. To learn more about what to say and what to know concerning the LGBTQIA+ community, this LGBTQIA+ inclusive language guide may show you how to.
3. Tell LGBTQIA+ Stories
Without storytelling, on what level can we talk concerning the existence of selling? To us, zero, perhaps below zero. So here’s the deal: Let your employees tell their stories, open space for them to share what they’ve been through until at the present time. You could make a video for social media accounts like Instagram and LinkedIn, including personal stories about being LGBTQIA+ in your small business field.
4. Donate to LGBTQIA+ Non-Profits
If you might be planning to sell Pride merchandise, donating a portion -hopefully the majority- of your income to LGBTQIA+ non-profit organizations will be a fantastic option to be sincere and show that you simply really care concerning the community. This way, you’ll make an impact on people’s lives as a substitute of staying at the extent of rainbow washing. Also, you’ll provide queers and allies with products to have fun Pride and break some normative ideas, akin to assuming everybody’s heterosexual and cisgender, because the more rainbows are seen, the more assumptions are shot down.
5. Don’t Pull Your Ads
I can hear that you simply are asking, “Why on earth would we pull our ads in spite of everything the time, energy, and creativity we spend on them?”
Sometimes brands don’t evaluate the attacks they’ll encounter once they simply have fun Pride. For example, Samsung published a industrial featuring a hijab-wearing mom and a drag queen son hugging one another. Although this ad was not created for Pride Month, it was an act of inclusivity. However, after the backlash, Samsung gave the worst explanation: “It could also be perceived as insensitive and offensive”, and withdrew the ad.
So, when publishing your Pride Month ads, it’s essential to anticipate potential negative comments. If you select to adapt to societal norms fairly than embracing inclusivity, you’ll cause disappointment locally and this time, shall be on the receiving end of harsh criticism from the LGBTQIA+ community.
Here are some comments written after Samsung’s act and words, listed by BBC:
- “Imagine being offended and threatened by a mother’s love for her child.”
- “If the commercial doesn’t run afoul of any laws .. and has a positive message on the acceptance of marginalised people, Samsung should keep on with its guns.”
- “As a queer Malay man, I’m saddened to see a video that expresses unconditional love [being] taken down abruptly as a result of societal pressure from a bunch of individuals with conservative values.”
So, do whatever you need to have fun Pride Month, select probably the most suitable path to wave a rainbow flag in June, but all the time make sure that your most important focus is supporting the LGBTQIA+ community along along with your brand.
Best Pride Month Marketing Campaigns for Inspiration
And here comes the part where we hype over the rainbow!
1. Proud Parent – Oreo
Oreo’s Proud Parent ad is a fantastic example of a sincere and thoughtful video campaign. The ad contains a lesbian couple visiting one side’s parents and highlights the contrast in welcoming behaviors in comparison with the heterosexual sibling and their partner.
A moving, authentic, and emotional story of reconnection of a dad and his little girl is told, while the brand, Oreo, is kept within the background and barely seen within the clip. You go Oreo!
2. Darla – Absolut Vodka
In this ad, Absolut Vodka effectively addresses bias against transgender individuals and draws attention to societal prejudices resulting in discrimination.
Two old friends meet after a protracted time, and the cisgender friend misgenders Darla at first. Then, she grabs his old friend’s hand, and they reconnect through sharing experiences of drinks, music, and heartfelt conversation.
There is a few criticism concerning the deal with the cisgender character embracing and, in a way, accepting his friend as she is, as if it’s an option to simply accept one’s being. But still, a significant company publishing an ad featuring a trans woman is something remarkable.
3. For Pride. Then. Now. Always. – Dr. Martens
This time, I don’t have a video ad but something more comprehensive: celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community each day and making donations each in Pride and in other times!
To get Dr. Martens’ perspective on Pride, I would like to share a quote from their dedicated web page, named “For Pride. Then. Now. Always.”:
FOR DR. MARTENS, PRIDE IS A YEAR-LONG CELEBRATION OF THE LGBTQIA+ COMMUNITY. AN ONGOING COMMITMENT TO PLATFORM, SUPPORT AND ADVOCATE.
Our wearers have a protracted history of supporting and participating in Pride and other system-shaking protests which have fought for equality. These acts of riot are a wealthy a part of what makes us the brand we’re today. Docs were adopted by the LGBTQIA+ community, and they’ve turn out to be a part of our DNA. We’re proud to support our team, our wearers, and queer culture. Then. Now. Always.
When we enter the net page, we’re warmly welcomed right into a space where the LGBTQIA+ community is wholeheartedly embraced, and where Pride is just not merely a promotion season on the marketing calendar. For Dr. Martens, Pride represents a permanent commitment to raising the voices of the queer community, truly supporting them with ongoing donations, and advocating for recognition and equality. For instance, last yr the brand donated $134k to numerous organizations, including TransNewYork, akt, and MicroRainbow.
The brand also gives place to stories from LGBTQIA+ history; you’ll be able to consider making an identical informative marketing campaign!
Dr. Martens’ web page tells the story of the connection between Dr. Martens and the LGBTQIA+ community in three parts. First, we see photos from LGBTQIA+ history and queers wearing Dr. Martens. Then we see what is happening in the current, and what they’ll do in the long run. You can explore Dr. Martens’ website to see every detail that I couldn’t put in my blog post.
As Dr. Martens emphasizes, we’ve to “look back at hard fought for progress that has been made through radical motion and resolute spirit.” Then, it’s time to observe a brief documentary concerning the past, present, and way forward for Pride Month and the Stonewall Riots.
4. The Story of Jacob and City Gym – Google Small Business
Google Small Business shows a strong narrative on this YouTube video. It highlights the actual story of a trans man who discovers support and acceptance at City Gym in Kansas. So, the video exemplifies how Google connects small businesses with customers, enhancing their experience through reviews while embracing the LGBTQIA+ community and unique stories from members of it.
5. Don’t Hate Me Because I Am BeautifuLGBTQ+ – Pantene
Pantene’s famous slogan, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” is in change. With the campaign, the brand goals to create a secure environment where LGBTQIA+ can freely express themselves.
In the ad below, you’ll be able to see that Pantene celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community by making a secure and inclusive space for people to embrace their authentic selves.
Bonus: Looking for Pride Month social media campaigns and some inspiration? Our blog post has you covered!
Wrapping Up
Before you permit this page, let me share some final thoughts.
Let’s spread love and equality all world wide. Wherever you end up, you’ll be able to make a difference along with your Pride Month marketing campaign, and you’ll be able to encourage others to step up too!
Feature LGBTQIA+in your ads, give them the highlight to share their stories, make donations to non-profits, and make daring statements of support.
You’ve got the facility to make an actual impact, we will make our world filled with equality, we will do it together.
If you need to mix the knowledge you get from this blog with marketing experts’ insights, why don’t you see our choice of the perfect digital marketing agencies?
Read the complete article here
