Why Pride Month marketing is quieter this year—and how brands can avoid backlash

Earlier this month, Target announced it would be scaling back its Pride Month products this year—the collection will no longer include childrenswear and will only be available for purchase online and in half of the chain’s 2,000 stores. The Minneapolis-based retailer, which has offered Pride products for more than a decade, is not the only brand pulling back on Pride. Prompted by last year’s backlash and boycotts from conservative groups, as well as pressure from activist investors, many marketers appear wary this year of being overly vocal about LGBTQ+ support. Only a handful of brands have announced Pride merchandise collections so far this year. Those with Pride plans for 2024, such as American Eagle, Converse and Levi’s, declined to make executives available to talk about them. Other brands that typically market Pride, including Kohl’s, Crocs and The North Face, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Amid an election year and intensifying culture clashes in the U.S., marketers are also challenged by global conflicts, such as the Israel-Hamas war. This is creating a much quieter June, experts said, with one comparing this year’s Pride Month to that of 15 years ago, before more recent progress, for example. “This thing that was considered sacrosanct, a done deal that Pride was a time of community, has now come up for discussion,” said Rana Reeves, founder and CEO of RanaVerse, noting that other DE&I celebrations such as Black History Month are also facing the same cultural targeting “under this umbrella of woke.” He added, “This is all causing nervousness in the brand world.” Read about Ad Age’s 2024 Leading Women here It’s a stark contrast to years past, when brands clamored for press coverage with in-person activations, special merchandise and partnerships, and extensive marketing campaigns. If a brand does have Pride plans this year, they are beginning later than in prior years, when many collections debuted in early or mid-May. Some say this is deliberate. “A lot of brands are going to go live during Pride because it’s a defined time for the community without that long tail,” said Reeves. “If you go live in April or May, a boycott can get going and can screw with what you want to do in June.” Bryan Pierce, founder and chief creative officer of 1964 Agency, said his agency, which typically works with a lot of alcohol brands, has seen a decline in demand for Pride work this year. “We usually get a lot of projects, especially last minute for Juneteenth and for Pride and oddly enough, it has been very quiet for us even on project support,” he said. “We have not had a big uptick.” Though 1964 Agency, which derived its name from the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banning racial, religious, national and sexual discrimination, is working with Absolut on a Pride initiative—it’s the vodka brand’s agency of record for LGBTQ strategy—Absolut did not respond to an inquiry for comment. Also read: Brands speak up for Mental Health Awareness Month Decreasing corporate support GLSEN, a nonprofit focused on creating safe and inclusive education for LGBTQ youth, typically has corporate partnerships in which a portion of proceeds from Pride collections support its endeavors. Last year, the organization took a $1.8 million hit following public attacks on Target, a GLSEN partner, and Bud Light, according to Paul Irwin-Dudek, deputy executive director for development. This year, GLSEN has also seen its corporate support around Pride merchandise “significantly decrease,” Irwin-Dudek said. Many brands appear to be taking their Pride cues from a mass retailer such as Target, which cited employee safety amid “volatile circumstances” as the reason for downsizing its Pride collection last year. When asked about the reason for the change in strategy this year, a Target spokesman pointed to a statement the retailer released earlier this month. “Target is committed to supporting the LGBTQIA+ community during Pride Month and year-round,” the statement read. “Most importantly, we want to create a welcoming and supportive environment for our LGBTQIA+ team members, which reflects our culture of care for the over 400,000 people who work at Target.” The statement noted Target will have a presence at local and national Pride events and that its “curated” selection of Pride products will be available in select stores and online. In addition to damaging LGBTQ-focused charitable endeavors with less financial funding, pullbacks of Pride Month initiatives can also harm the community from an awareness perspective, Irwin-Dudek said. “When Target had our line, when brands are promoting it in their stores across the country, it shows queer individuals that not only is a retailer looking out for them but also organizations like GLSEN and The Trevor Project are also out there doing work in the community,” he said, noting the damage from the 510 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced by state legislatures last year. “It is extremely disappointing when corporate partners that have said vocally for so many years that they are standing with the community, but seem to only stand with the community in good times not difficult times,” Irwin-Dudek said. Still, some brands are moving forward with LGBTQ+ support. This year, GLSEN has corporate partnerships for Pride with brands such as Pair Eyewear, Urban Outfitters and Insomnia Cookies. The nonprofit is also entering its eighth annual Pride collaboration with Abercrombie & Fitch-owned Hollister, which is seeing significant revenue increases, according to Irwin-Dudek. The clothier’s namesake label has a partnership with The Trevor Project, the suicide prevention organization for LGBTQ+ youth. “We work to ensure that our customers and associates feel respected and represented, and supporting the LGBTQ+ community is an important part of that,” an Abercrombie spokeswoman wrote in an emailed statement. “We’re proud to continue our Pride collections, while also supporting our longstanding partners at The Trevor Project and GLSEN.” A Walmart spokesman said the retailer’s Pride strategy this year remains unchanged from prior years in terms of both size and distribution of the collection. At American Eagle, which rolled out a Pride line on May 2, two days earlier than last year, a spokeswoman said the collection is bigger this year with more products though executives declined to talk about why. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Teen retailers show up Many brand experts said it’s unsurprising for teen-centric brands such as American Eagle or Hollister to step up their Pride commitments given recent polls about Gen Z consumer behavior. Nearly half, or 48%, of consumers ages 18 to 34, and 43% of Gen Z consumers, say that LGBTQIA+ allyship and supporting LGBTQIA+ rights are important to them, according to the recent State of Media, Entertainment & Tech: Focus LGBTQIA+ and Focus Generation Next survey from Horowitz Research. “When you look at where generations are going on the topic of LGBT issues, there’s no confusion there,” said Michael Wilke, a lesbian and gay marketing specialist who is founder of AdRespect.org and a senior U.S. consultant at OutNow, noting that companies have to begin thinking about the next generation of consumers. (Wilke was a reporter at Ad Age in the 1990s.) Indeed, the buying power of younger shoppers has been well documented. 1964 Agency’s Pierce also pointed to Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour last year. The singer’s album especially resonated with queer and multicultural customers, who showed their support through their wallets. “What’s ironic is that there was such a big conversation last year about the buying power of [the] LGBTQ community,” said Pierce. He added, “But once you diss this community, speaking as a Black and queer person, once you do us wrong, it’s hard to shift that conversation because now people think you’re just in it for the money.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by ALOK (@alokvmenon) Adding to the pressure for brands is the Israel-Hamas war, which has created a new layer of sensitivity to Pride campaigns, Reeves said. For example, last week, Ugg released a Pride campaign co-created with Alok Vaid-Menon, a gender non-conforming influencer and artist. The collaboration’s Instagram debut was met with criticism from customers condemning Vaid-Menon for working with a brand parented by Deckers Brands, which operates stores in Israel. “How is queer liberation not intertwined with every liberation?? Free Palestine from genocide and those who support genocide. Ugg is on the boycott list,” wrote one commenter on the May 15 post. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Reeves said such backlash, coming largely from the left, is beginning to affect brands as well. “You’re getting it from both sides,” he said. “Even up to four weeks ago, everything I was doing for brands from an LGBTQ perspective was how do we adapt to this environment from the right, now I’m not only having to look at the right, I’m having to look at the left.” Despite a quieter Pride Month this year, inclusion of the LGBTQ+ community in year-round marketing has become more mainstream, according to Wilke. He tracks companies that have incorporated LGBTQ+ inclusivity into their marketing and noted that the recent Super Bowl had numerous inclusive ads from national and regional advertisers. Brands such as Volkswagen and TurboTax featured gay and lesbian couples in their spots this year, for example, while Homes.com and Hellmann’s hired LGBTQ+ actors Daniel Levy and Kate McKinnon, respectively. Wilke noted that there is a difference between ads that only target the LGBTQ+ community and those that are inclusive of that community. “Some marketers may have pulled back for June ‘rah rah’ for Pride, which arguably is the more limited approach anyway when you look at the big picture—gay people are there all year so it shouldn’t just be limited to the one month,” he said. “To be authentic, you don’t just go into the month of whoever to be inclusive, you do it year-round.”

Why Pride Month marketing is quieter this year—and how brands can avoid backlash

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