The next era of Pride Month marketing

Pride Month is underway, marking a season of celebration that’s become a mainstay for some brands. But the ability to earn trust with LGBTQ+ audiences goes far beyond rainbow merch or a few social media posts. This week on the Modern Retail Podcast, special projects editor Melissa Daniels interviews LGBTQ marketing specialists Matt Tumminello and Matt Wagner of Target10. Their conversation centers on earning trust with LGBTQ+ customers long before it’s time for a Pride collection, starting with the ways companies used to show up and how that’s changed over the years. ‘Pride marketing’ is in its third act as cultural winds change While it may seem like a mainstay on the calendar, brands getting involved in Pride is somewhat of a recent development. Tumminello said that brands in the late 1990s and early 2000s were still somewhat cautious about being outwardly supportive of LGBTQ+ communities and catering to them as customers. But after marriage equality became the law of the land in 2015, tones started to shift. “All of these brands and companies started to think, ‘Oh, it’s safe now. I can say something,'” he said. “That’s when we started to see a lot of what you might call ‘pride marketing’ happening, like fashion capsules or limited editions with proceeds going to a nonprofit organization, or employees marching in parades.” The competition for eyeballs intensified, and Pride campaigns began to feel diluted, Wagner said. “It started to almost take on this freewheeling sense of everyone, and anyone can get involved, and what might have been a little more intentional or conscious of a placement … became a bit of a default add-on or bolt-on to almost every brief.” But as political winds have shifted, so have the ways brands participate in culture. In recent years, being outwardly supportive of LGBTQ+ communities and related causes has come with greater risk for brands, as seen in the initial Bud Light boycott after it partnered with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in 2023. Omnisend, an e-commerce messaging platform, found in a survey this year that about 37% of shoppers think brands are pulling back. “Some brands are stepping back, and it’s a little bit quieter,” Tumminello said. “Others are staying the course. That actually speaks volumes.” Earning trust with LGBTQ+ consumers takes more than a one-time campaign Wagner said that earning the trust of LGBTQ+ customers has a higher bar than it may have had 20 or 30 years ago, given how much more competition there is overall for shoppers’ attention. Gen Z consumers who are part of the LGBTQ+ community may also be less likely to respond to something that’s outwardly Pride-oriented and more likely to respond to what’s cool or has the right “vibes,” Wagner said. “There are far more brands trying to court queer people who maybe never even heard of the brand, but if they did, they would love it. So, that’s a slightly different way of going at it that I think has changed rather dramatically in these 30 years,” he said. Tumminello said brands with a consistent presence in front of LGBTQ+ customers are the ones that make the most sense to tap into Pride campaigns. “If you’re a travel brand, the summer might be your height of the season, or if you’re a ski resort, it’s the wintertime,” Tumminello said. “Think of your brand’s key moments, in terms of sales and promotions and messaging. Then, how does the LGBTQ+ cohort fit within that campaign?” Engaging in key moments in other times of the year means that showing up as a Pride parade sponsor or with a special themed collection doesn’t feel awkward or out of place, Tumminello said. “There are all of those kinds of ‘don’t be a bad guest at a party’ analogies,” he said. “They’re celebrating Pride as if they’re my best friend, and I don’t think they’ve ever been to my party before.” Winning strategies start with authentic moments and messages One company that has continually celebrated Pride authentically is Levi’s. This year, it’s donating $100,000 to the human rights nonprofit Outright International, while also sponsoring the Pride parade in its hometown of San Francisco and supporting parades internationally in Amsterdam, Paris, Mexico City and Warsaw. On the product side, this year the company’s “Together We Ride” collection takes inspiration from queer biker clubs; it’s already sold out of the $230 leather chaps inscribed with the slogan on the belt. But none of this is new for the company. By its own account, Levi’s became the first Fortune 500 company to offer health benefits to domestic partners back in 1992. “They may do an annual Pride campaign, but it’s not a one-and-done of their engagement,” Tumminello said. “It’s who they are, whether it’s their employees, their marketing, how they show up or where they show up.” Target10 has also worked with Trojan to establish a connection with the gay community that goes back to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when the company started thinking differently about how to talk to gay men. Wagner said it has since worked with dozens of queer creators and sponsored multiple events, including the Bushwig drag festival in Brooklyn. “Over the course of these last six or seven years, we’ve had this consistent presence,” Wagner said. Most recently, Wagner worked with Trojan when the brand sponsored the premiere party for the new RuPaul comedy movie “Stop! That! Train!,” which comes out this month. The product is also featured in the film. “That was just kind of as fabulous as you may imagine, with hundreds of celebrities and drag queens and influencers all engaging with the brands in such a natural, organic way,” he said. “Many of them were commenting on the Trojan work they’d seen over the years, so it just all felt like it belonged and like it fit. No one batted an eye.”