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They did it to get a return on investment for the advertising dollars,” Mulryan said.īut many of these early advertisers still cemented themselves in queer popular culture.įor example, Absolut Vodka - a pride festival staple - began advertising to an LGBTQ customer base in 1981. He said the move by companies to market to LGBTQ people was not a radical call for acceptance. One of them, Mulryan/Nash, was co-founded in 1991 by Dave Mulryan. Most marketing used to happen on a local scale, like advertising a local gay-friendly bar, restaurant, bookstore or bathhouse.Īs recognition of gay men and lesbians grew in the 1980s and ‘90s, marketing agencies that catered to those demographics began popping up, creating advertisements for regional and national audiences. The proliferation of those rainbow logos and corporate marketing to LGBTQ people is a relatively recent phenomenon.Īdvertising to queer consumers has undergone a revolution of sorts in the past half-century, according to Blaine Branchik, a former professor at Quinnipiac University who has studied LGBTQ marketing.
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That means that corporations may be forced to reevaluate the effectiveness of their pride celebrations, as their underlying values and actions are being looked at more critically. Now, savvy, younger, and more queer-identifying consumers - who have grown up with greater acceptance and representation than previous generations - are continuing to enter the market. While it may look like smart advertising, some LGBTQ people chalk up those logos - which always seem to change back on July 1 - to rainbow washing, the act of businesses advertising themselves as LGBTQ allies when their real support for rainbow causes is a bit more gray. For the past several years, hundreds of brands have rainbow-ified their logos in celebration of Pride month.ĪT&T.
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If you’re on any social media platform in June, it’s hard to miss the rainbow explosion.