With June behind us, we saw Pride Month marketing dominate feeds once again. That is indeed the point: visibility. Taking up space in the hope of creating more. If we're loud enough in our truth and our joy, perhaps we’ll make enough room for someone who feels they have none to simply exist in theirs.

With increased visibility comes increased spending by both brands and consumers.

But this is much more than a month-long surge. The LGBTQIA+ community represents an estimated $917 billion in annual U.S. spending power (Forbes). A figure like that isn’t to be ignored. It should be explored. 

The pot of gold insight 🌈

With the figures figuring, that $917 billion has brands asking: “How can we show up here without virtue signaling? What can we do differently to set us apart?” Pride champions authenticity, a word being worn hollow by overuse in the industry. And this segment reads insincerity fast. Pandering doesn't just fall flat; it gets punished. The tension, then, lies in showing up for a movement you want to support but may not fully understand. 

The desire to belong and find community is universal - brands, consumers, and marketers all feel it. At Taylor, we understand that Pride, like any cultural phenomenon, is about rallying around a theme. Here, though, the theme is individuality.

So…what can we do about it? 

Explore your lore!

We can tell you to be true to yourself (your brand) ‘til the cows come home. But the truth is that execution matters, and that execution requires careful consideration. Just as you’d conduct a deep dive to differentiate a brand within its category, the same rings true (even louder!) in spaces where credibility is currency.

The first step to successfully developing a Pride campaign and connecting with consumers at large is exploring your own brand lore.

Lore: The living, breathing ecosystem of perception and storytelling brands naturally develop over years in culture.

When we dive into the lore, we discern a brand’s portrayed narrative from the reality of how it’s perceived, shared, and augmented by the target audience. Social listening to show up for Pride is about building an understanding of that collective awareness and finding the balance.

Mine the meaning from the meme.

Consumers share a collaborative consciousness. They hold onto the small details of a brand - what truly sets them apart - and bring them into the fold of the community’s conversation. In some cases, these details become social signifiers, markers of who they are.

These gems can manifest in memes, styling/use-case trends, or shared phrases and taglines.

Excavating your brand gems and activating them is the way-in to connect with Pride and the LGBTQIA+ community with substance. A successful execution shows you understand what’s true to the brand AND the audience. Clever, in tune, and powerful.

Let your consumer reveal your way in.

Knowing that Pride marketing hinges on conforming to nonconformity, let’s take a fun peek at a brand sitting on a massive opportunity for an epic Pride campaign.

M&M’s, with its cast of anthropomorphized characters, has found massive success as a lever for reactive content. Over the 72 years that the limbed candies have been showing up for cultural moments, they’ve built a rich and storied brand lore ecosystem, rife with brand gems to mine! Among them is one the average person might miss: the Green M&M happens to be a queer icon.

Since her debut in 1997, gogo boots and all, Green became a fan and queer favorite. She offered a uniquely feminine iconography the LGBTQIA+ community fell head over heels for. So when M&M’s took Green’s boots away, the backlash was severe - drawing coverage from The Washington Post and prompting a “Keep the Green M&M Sexy,” petition with over 21,000 signatures. The uproar did not escape the brand, though the opportunity to convert the energy into impact did. 

Restoring the boots as a Pride initiative would activate the insight we’ve surfaced here: actual authenticity. Taking an introspective look at a brand’s own lore, keeping an ear to the pavement for how consumers are talking, and turning it around in a devastatingly clever display of allyship.

There’s always room at the rainbow table.

Let sincerity be something your brand exudes rather than emulates, and the community will make space for you as we have for each other. Fund the work in October, connect with local leaders in February, and keep the messaging when there's no month to market against. Commitment doesn’t clock out when the rainbow logos come down. 

For brands whose Pride was not a campaign costume - the ones still in the room when the parade is over - a fierce cohort of loyal, engaged, and spendy consumers awaits them. Happy PRIDE!

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