Every June, I watch the same cycle play out. Brands change their logos to rainbow versions on June 1st. Someone tweets a comparison of the same brand's Middle East social accounts, which remain un-rainbowed. A thread goes viral calling out which brands donate to anti-LGBTQ politicians. By June 10th, the discourse has moved on and the rainbow logos persist uselessly until July 1st when they quietly revert.
Every June, I watch the same cycle play out.
And every year I think: we are still doing this? Still?
Rainbow-washing has been discussed to death. I know. But 2021 added a new wrinkle that I think is worth examining. This year, the backlash is not just coming from LGBTQ activists tired of performative allyship. It is coming from consumers broadly who have developed a sophisticated BS detector for performative brand activism of ALL kinds.
The George Floyd protests of 2020 trained an entire generation to spot the gap between brand statements and brand behavior. People learned to ask: okay, you posted the black square, but what did you actually DO? That investigative impulse is now being applied to Pride month, and to every other cause-marketing window on the calendar.
The gap between saying and doing is now the primary brand risk of cause marketing. Not whether you participate, but whether your participation has substance behind it. Because consumers now know to look.
Here is what I think genuine Pride engagement looks like in 2021, for brands that actually want to get this right. First: year-round action. If your LGBTQ support is visible only in June, you are decorating, not advocating. Hire queer people in leadership. Offer equitable benefits to same-sex partners. Donate to LGBTQ organizations in November when nobody is watching.
Second: specificity. "We support the LGBTQ community" means nothing. Which community? Where? On what issue? The brands doing this well name the specific legislation they oppose, the specific organizations they fund, the specific policies they have changed internally. Absolut Vodka has funded LGBTQ causes since 1981. That is not a June campaign. That is a brand identity.
Third: consistency across markets. If you are rainbow in the US and silent in the Middle East, you are not an ally. You are a coward doing math. Consumers see the inconsistency and it undermines everything.
I know some strategists will push back and say that incremental visibility matters, that even performative support normalizes queerness, that perfect is the enemy of good. And there is truth to that, historically. Ten years ago, any corporate rainbow was progress.
But it is 2021. The bar has risen. Consumers are more sophisticated. And the gap between a rainbow logo and actual systemic support has been mapped and publicized so thoroughly that the logo without the substance now actively damages trust rather than building it.
If your brand's Pride strategy this year was "change the logo and post a supportive graphic on Instagram," I have bad news. You did not support the LGBTQ community. You reminded them that you will borrow their aesthetic when it is safe and profitable, and disappear when it is not.
That is not allyship. That is seasonal merchandising with better intentions.