Celebrating Community for PRIDE Month and Beyond

This year for PRIDE, Prism, Praytell’s LGBTQIA+ Employee Research Group has its focus on community. Following 2020’s isolation during PRIDE, 2021 is the time to focus on something way bigger than ourselves. The past year and a half have been particularly challenging for all marginalized groups, with 42% of LGBTQIA+ youth seriously considering suicide and 94% believing that recent politics have negatively impacted their mental health — according to a recent report from the Trevor Project. Coming out of the pandemic in the US, historically queer spaces are looking to reignite their respective local communities.

Pride Month is wrapping up, and while we’ll see many brands changing their rainbowed logos back to their original forms, for the LGBTQIA+ community, Pride is evergreen. PRIDE campaigns present an interesting challenge for brands. At Praytell, when we’re advising a brand wanting to do something externally-facing for PRIDE, we first want to make sure they’ve focused on WHY they’re doing it. We want to know what this company does to make their LGBTQIA+ workers feel included. Does this company support any LGBTQIA+ organizations? How does their support and inclusion of the community continue past June?

Not everyone gets PRIDE right. A scroll through Twitter can result in seeing roasting of several inauthentic PRIDE campaigns from brands — i.e. Marks & Spencer’s LGBT (Lettuce Guacamole Bacon and Tomato sandwich) — and while it’d be entertaining to obliterate some of the most disingenuous celebrations of queerness, haven’t we suffered enough? 2021 PRIDE is a time to celebrate the good! Introducing some of our favorite advertising, PR, and marketing campaigns for PRIDE.

GOOSE ISLAND BEER CO. — ROYAL EDITION SHEA COUL-ALÉ

Proudly a part of Praytell’s client roster, Goose Island Beer Co. has been brewing up PRIDE campaigns that are worth toasting to. For PRIDE month this year, Goose Island teamed up with RuPaul’s Drag Race winner and Chicago native Shea Couleé for the second year in a row to release a brand new “Royal Edition” beer of Shea Coul-Alé. This collaboration brings together two untraditionally paired cultural aspects: beer and drag queens. The result is a campaign that is both refreshing and meaningful.

When ideating a PRIDE campaign not only is the messaging important but so are the partnerships and organizations incorporated. This small yet hugely meaningful component could either set a brand and its campaign aside from the rest of the crowd or it could blend right in and the latter is the opposite of what PRIDE is all about. Many other brands and organizations tend to target the same big national LGBTQIA+ organizations and fail to see through the cracks and target those smaller and local communities. Goose Island and Shea Couleé — who are both from Chicago — chose a Chicago-based organization. This year’s campaign benefits the Brave Space Alliance, the first Black-led, trans-led LGBTQIA+ Center located on the South Side of Chicago dedicated to creating and providing affirming, culturally competent, programming, and services for LGBTQIA+ individuals.  

For both Goose Island’s 2020 and 2021 PRIDE campaigns, they have given back to LGBTQIA+ organizations that focus on the trans community. The focus on the trans community, a community that is often overlooked. A brand that does its homework and identifies the communities that could use some more ongoing support is a brand that cares about its consumers far beyond June.

SPOTIFY — CLAIM YOUR SPACE

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This year’s Spotify PRIDE campaign celebrates the many queer musical artists, activists, and music spaces that have been forced to be resilient to be avenues for LGBTQIA+ expression. Based around the rallying cry of CLAIM YOUR SPACE, Spotify is encouraging the queer community to live out loud with a series of in-person and virtual activations based around queer musical artists and podcasters.

American pop culture has historically minimized, and in many cases erased, the cultural contributions of LGBTQIA+ creators. Spotify is using its large platform to highlight creators with their annual PRIDE Hub, several original PRIDE music singles, social share cards, PRIDE murals, and venue playlists — which team up with queer bars and clubs across the world following a difficult year for nightlife.

Pivotal to any truly impactful PRIDE campaign, Spotify will be donating directly to local organizations; further emphasizing the need for funding of smaller organizations, coming out of the pandemic.

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Another Praytell client, Under Armour, found inspiration from their local community and the importance of PRIDE posters that have been a constant throughout the over fifty-year LGBTQIA+ liberation movement. For 2021’s Under Armour PRIDE collection, Under Armour’s own LGBTQIA+ Teammate Resource Group (TRG), UNIFIED, was at the center of planning and creating the final product — with teammates’ words directly in the collection’s print.

Alongside the launch of the PRIDE collection, UNIFIED selected The PRIDE Center of Maryland, in Under Armour's hometown of Baltimore, as the recipient of a donation that will fund the creation of the Center’s new wellness studio and digital lounge. The new studio provides a gym and safe space for LGBTQIA+ Baltimore residents.

Under Armour’s focus on giving back to their immediate community is something we’re seeing more of in recent years. The direct representation and inclusion of LGBTQIA+ employees throughout the entirety of making the PRIDE collection come to life prove how much care went into really focusing on “WHY?” Under Armour even created a PRIDE campaign. Coming out of this pandemic, it’s clear that Under Armour is fostering PRIDE from within to make an even larger impact.

True LGBTQIA+ PRIDE is way more than a campaign. But how can a company create a PRIDE campaign that makes sense for their brand, celebrates queer joy, focuses on community, and is inclusive? Here are some tips:

DON’T:

• DON’T assume people won’t look up what anti-LGBTQIA+ political organizations a company donates money to.
• DON’T donate to anti-LGBTQIA+ political organizations in the first place.
• DON’T just slap a rainbow on your logo and call it a day.
• DON’T expect to be rewarded/celebrated as a brand for doing the minimum during PRIDE month.
• DON’T just throw slang terms together. Use them correctly, please. Or, just don’t.
• DON’T just do something for June and forget LGBTQIA+ representation until planning begins for 2022 PRIDE.

DO:

• DO what you can to positively affect pro-LGBTQIA+ legislation.
• DO use this time to educate your stakeholders.
• DO everything you can to make your business an equitable workplace year-round.
• DO extensive casting, recruiting, and hiring to ensure people of as many identities, abilities, ethnicities, and genders are represented both in outward-facing media and behind-the-scenes.
• DOnate to a local nonprofit organization that helps the LGBTQIA+ community.
• DO the work. This is an opportunity for so many marginalized people to finally see themselves in the world. Keep working past June. PRIDE continues.

At Praytell, through our internal Prism meetings, Prism workshops, events with guest speakers — like activist Marti Allen-Cummings — and social media history lessons highlighting iconic LGBTQIA+ safe spaces in the cities of Praytell’s offices, Prism is spending this year’s PRIDE celebrating spaces of community for queer expression. Long past June 2021, Praytell Prism will continue its commitment to supporting our community. Here’s to a more inclusive, more joyous, and more proud future. Happy PRIDE from all of us at Prism.

Praytell Prism is a safe and open space to celebrate the commonalities and differences in our experiences as LGBTQIA+ people and allies at Praytell, in the industry and in the world at large. Our goals are to:

• Make authentic, ongoing impact on agency work and culture by organizing voices in dialogue with leadership and other stakeholders
• Create a centralized system of support for LGBTQIA+ employees
• Work toward a diverse and inclusive future at the agency including recruitment, learning and thought leadership
• Use our voices, strength and skills for outside support, especially for traditionally underserved members of the LGBTQIA+ community