Pride Campaigns Went Ahead Despite Bud Light and Target Controversies

Major marketers moved ahead with Pride Month efforts in June after recent controversies with Bud Light and Target raised questions about how much commitment to LGBTQ rights brands would show this year. But some marketing professionals say the fallout from those disputes has begun to reshape how companies approach social causes.

Pride Month began soon after a Bud Light collaboration with a transgender influencer triggered a boycott and Target’s Pride collection sparked a backlash that it said included in-store confrontations. Some conservatives sought to build on those clashes by calling for boycotts of brands that advertise their support for Pride. “The goal is to make ‘pride’ toxic for brands,” conservative commentator Matt Walshwrote on Twitter.

The Body Shop nonethelessran a “Freedom to be” campaign featuring drag performers that the cosmetics and skin care retailer called a response to rising anti-drag legislation and sentiment in the U.S. As it has in the past, the chain pre-emptively trained employees to respond to possible negative reactions from consumers, the company said.

So far the response has been positive, said Hilary Lloyd, vice president of marketing and corporate social responsibility for The Body Shop North America.

“Our primary position is that equality is a human right,” Lloyd said, which she added was nothing new for the company and that it supports LGBTQ causes all year round. “It becomes a decision about how to execute, as opposed to whether or not we should execute.”

A number of other brands brought on crisis communications teams to help them respond to any attacks on their Pride messaging, said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and chief executive of LGBTQ rights group Glaad.

The top question marketers asked Glaad at this month’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the ad industry’s biggest annual gathering, was how to avoid becoming the next Bud Light or Target, Ellis said.

“I do think that what happened to Bud Light and what happened to Target had a bit of a chilling effect,” Ellis said.

Marketing executives stillbelieve that catering to LGBTQ consumers is essential to the long-term success of their businesses, Ellis said, but they are concerned about getting full buy-in from conflict-averse chief executives.

Glaad and communications firm Teneo formed a task force armed with data points to help marketers demonstrate the value of LGBTQ marketing to CEOs, Ellis said.

Careful examination

This spring’s controversies might lead some marketers to re-evaluate their level of commitment to various social causes, so as to avoid bruising controversies and advocate for issues they consider priorities, marketing experts said.

That could mean a turn away from surface-level marketing efforts to gain the dollars and attention of the LGBTQ community, but that don’t demonstrate deeper support. For instance, some brands might add a rainbow to the company logo for Pride month, while supporting legislation viewed as harmful to LGBTQ rights. The divergence is known as “rainbow-washing.”

Successful brands will also redouble their efforts to speak in a style and voice that resonates with their particular consumers, said Marie Driscoll, managing director of luxury and retail at research firm Coresight Research.

“I think that they’ll learn to know their customer better, not speak to a mass market, speak to their market segments and niches in a brand-appropriate way,” Driscoll said.

Insincere communications, while they may capture attention, don’t support long-term, valuable relationships with consumers, she said.

“Brands should be careful about messaging that leans on the political if they’re not willing to lean into it or own it wholeheartedly,” she said. They should consider doing it in targeted or niche ways—“if it is authentic,” she added.

And some might re-examine their policies to eliminate gray areas.

Starbucks, for instance, this year pledged to continue to support LGBTQ rights and released seasonal cups with references to Pride events and drag shows. But some of the coffee chain’s workers went on strike, saying some store managers had limited their ability to put up Pride decorations, citing concerns including safety.

In response, Starbucks this week said it would issue clearer guidelines for in-store visual displays and decorations supporting inclusion, while still allowing flexibility for individual stores.

Brewers’ backing

Despite the boycott of Bud Light, which lost its crown as the top-selling U.S. beer partly as a result, the brand and rival brews this year continued a long history of sponsoring Pride parades around the country.

Bud Light sponsored or co-sponsored Pride events this year in St. Louis, San Antonio and other U.S. cities, while Coors Light sponsored events including a Colorado Rockies Pride Night baseball game and returned as the title sponsor of the Denver Pride Parade.

Pride sponsorships have generally been a key opportunity for beer brands to reach LGBTQ-friendly audiences, with parade sponsorships in some of the largest U.S. cities priced around $150,000, and others costing significantly less, said Christopher Shepard, senior editor of trade publication Beer Marketer’s Insights.

Pride messages on social media have also been relatively low-cost and low-risk for beer brands in the recent past, but that dynamic shifted this year after the Bud Light boycott, especially regarding organic social media content that can be easily searched, shared and criticized by users around the world, Shepard said.

Dylan Mulvaney, the trans influencer whose partnership with Bud Light was seized upon this spring, criticized Bud Light brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev in a June 29 Instagram post, saying the company didn’t reach out to her after the controversy. “For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse in my opinion than not hiring a trans person at all,” she said, without naming the company.

A spokeswoman for AB InBev said the company remains committed to organizations and communities it has worked with for decades, including those in the LGBTQ community.

Molson Coors, which makes Coors Light, has raised money for LGTBQ nonprofits in recent years through its “Tap Into Change” initiative, but hasn’t mentioned the program in this year’s marketing materials or posted Pride-related messages on its brands’ social-media accounts so far this month.

Last year, in contrast, the company hosted an event to celebrate “Tap Into Change”; its Miller Lite brand also released a book documenting the history of U.S. gay bars, which the brew promoted on Twitter and Instagram.

In response, a spokesman said Molson Coors has celebrated Pride for decades, did again this year and will “for decades to come.”

Some brands did temper their messaging and opt for a more defensive approach this year, according to Andy Pray, chief executive of public-relations firm Praytell.

“Many brands this year are only willing to do Pride activities that get them in the least amount of trouble, from either side,” said Pray, referring to conversations with some of his own clients.

It can be difficult to determine whether and how brands’ Pride campaigns differ from years past because they often involve sponsorships, social media content and donations rather than more easily tracked big-budget ad campaigns.

But some campaigns were likely scaled back, more tightly targeted to certain consumers and regions, or edited to showcase parts of the LGBTQ community deemed more palatable to general audiences, said Melanie McShane, an executive director of strategy at branding firm Siegel+Gale.

If so, those brands could see that as a mistake down the line, McShane said.

“I’m not denying it’s a complicated time to be a CMO, but given that most of these companies are in a fight for an increasingly queer generation that really isn’t waking up in the morning trying to give attention to brands, it seems incredibly shortsighted,” she said.

At Cannes Lions, a number of brands signed a Glaad pledge saying they would “reject the harassment and bullying of the LGBTQ communities” and continue including them in their marketing.

Among the brands were snack giant Mondelez International, software-maker Salesforce and Samuel Adams owner Boston Beer Co., which again brought out its annual Pride-themed beer: “Love Conquers Ale.”