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.”
