- Developing sponsorships for LGBTQIA+ initiatives in 2024 is extremely challenging.
- Increased scrutiny from consumers concerning “rainbow-washing”, nervousness from brands to manage backlash from both ends and cutbacks on DEI budgets are all contributing to the stormy outlook.
- An increasingly hostile environment for LGBTQIA+ people, and a charity sector facing funding challenges and service need spikes, makes the need to find a way forward more urgent.
The shrinking pool of ‘acceptable’ sponsors
Two issues dominate the shifting sands on which brands are considered acceptable to develop sponsorship with in 2024: the urgent need to address the climate crisis, halting mass extinction and societal collapse; and the urgent need to address the crisis in Gaza. A crisis where according to the Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, Israel stalled the entry of aid into Gaza, and where in an order dated January 26, The International Court of Justice stated that it was the court’s view that “at least some” of South Africa’s claims that Palestinian rights needing protection under the genocide convention were “plausible”.
A year ago British LGBT awards faced pressure to drop their brand sponsors, Shell and BP, when campaigning group Fossil Free Pride called on those associated with it to withdraw their support, with some success. The host for the evening, Sue Perkins, pulled out, as did many of the nominees. The awards went ahead with BP and Shell being dropped. Fossil Free Pride continued to protest, maintaining a gathering outside the event – with slogans like “pump ass not gas” – and called for the organisers to drop all of their “climate-wrecking” sponsors, labelled as such for their financing of the fossil fuel industry. These sponsors included HSBC, BNP Paribas and Macquarie Capital.
Since then we’ve seen Pride in London’s annual march disrupted by another campaigning group with similar aims, Just Stop Oil, when they sat in front of Coca-Cola’s Pride float truck. We’ve seen a protest outside of PinkNews Awards, once again by Fossil Free Pride, this time targeting sponsors Royal Bank of Canada and Lloyds Banking Group. And in February, National Student Pride also faced backlash from a new group, Queers for Palestine, after being accused of “celebrating the destruction of Palestine and the genocide of its people” due to its sponsors, including Airbus and HSBC, which they consider complicit. The group says HSBC has shares in a company whose equipment is used to “bulldoze Palestinian homes”. And they say that Airbus has a “deal with Israel Aerospace to lease drones to the German military”, drones that the group say “patrol the skies of Gaza and unleash stealth bombs”.
As booked talent and stall-holders withdrew their support, National Student Pride dropped the full list of sponsors that the group wanted them to drop “at significant cost” to its event and organisation.
LGBTQIA+ initiatives and Pride groups developing and activating sponsorships through the year look set to continue to face similar challenges over their choice of sponsors, as the landscape only gets more complex.
More money for marketing, but less money for meaning
Growth in marketing budgets reached the highest levels in just under a decade in Q4 of 2023, according to the latest IPA Bellwether Report. And so the outlook for this year looks to be positive.
But post-Bud Light, we risk seeing a sizeable minority of marketers take the wrong lessons from last year. The Contagious Radar report told us that when asked how they feel about “purpose”, 1 in 4 marketers felt that the Bud Light campaign was a “real wake-up call to dial it down”.
And as I also noted in my last column, “The gay Guinness ad that never ran”, this is happening against a backdrop where DEI investment is being reduced. Major Player’s Future of Work survey found over half of business leaders don’t have specific DEI budgets and aren’t able to plan strategically or create initiatives altogether. Things are seemingly regressing. In 2021, Workday (which has a broader remit than the ad industry) found that over two-thirds of organisations had a dedicated budget.
Without the necessary DEI upskilling taking place to instil confidence in marketers to advocate for and invest in the LGBTQIA+ community, will these healthy budgets simply find themselves redirected away from activations that actively support us?
Consumer intolerance to ‘rainbow-washing’ is at a peak
WPP Unite reported a tenfold increase in use of the term “rainbow-washing” from 2020 to 2022 in their Beyond the Rainbow report, indicating a growing awareness among consumers of the cynical motives behind some brand activity.
There are two uses for the term “rainbow-washing” that I’ve observed.
The most commonly known is what describes the behaviour of an organisation when they signal their support for the LGBTQIA+ community by attaching themselves to the language and symbols of queer liberation without substantively supporting the community. Here brands ‘wash’ their logo in the colours of the ‘rainbow’ for Pride month and produce products to exploit the community solely for profit, without exerting any or inadequate effort toward improving the lives of queer people.
The other form of “rainbow-washing” we see is perhaps best expressed by groups like Queers for Palestine and Fossil Free Pride. It’s the accusation that an organisation, or even country, is attaching themselves to queer liberation and often can, but not always, produce authentic pro-LGBTQIA+ credentials, in order to distract from other social harms they are perceived to be complicit in perpetuating. It’s the idea of intersectional justice – that queer liberation cannot be disconnected from the fight for climate and ecological justice, from feminism, or anti-racist and anti-colonial politics.
As the LGBTQIA+ movement has developed an increasing appreciation for the interconnectedness of social justice issues, so has the awareness of, and intolerance for, this form of “rainbow-washing”.
Our queer community is more alive to social justice issues and intolerant of inaction from brands. In Outvertising’s Consumer Report 2023 we found that 60% of LGBTQIA+ people in the UK believe that brands should express their views on political and social issues, compared to 41% of non-LGBTQIA+ people. The queer community also believe that brands should take this further and get involved with social issues (59% vs 37%), and are more likely to reject a brand if its views are not aligned with their own, out-pacing the non-LGBTQIA+ audience (64% vs 50%).
The bare minimum will simply never be enough.
Storms produce rainbows
While developing sponsorships for LGBTQIA+ initiatives in this environment is extremely challenging, I want to end with a note of hope and optimism.
There is a real appetite for authentic activations that avoid accusations of “rainbow-washing”, attract queer talent and meaningfully support the community. There is the desire to do so morally speaking and often a clear understanding of the commercial benefits to doing so, too. Over the past three months I’ve had countless calls with prospective sponsors for my new initiative, Trans+ History Week, which is running events and investing in Trans+ creative talent, and while the issues in this piece are of course part of the conversation, the prevailing sentiment is one of enthusiasm to get behind queer initiatives.
Many brands are recognising the interconnectedness of social justice issues and that they need to engage in them meaningfully. And it appears, at least for now, that the marketing budgets are healthy, so I’m confident we can see money continue to flow into our sector as we approach Pride season.
So brand owners, in a year when the community really needs you, let’s double down and re-double our commitment and let’s make this Pride season a “double-rainbow” one.
Marty Davies (she/they) is joint chief executive of Outvertising, the marketing and advertising industry’s LGBTQIA+ advocacy group; and co-founder of Trans+ Adland, a grassroots community group of trans, non-binary, gender non-conforming and intersex people across the world of marketing and advertising. They are also the founder of creative strategy consultancy Smarty Pants and founder of Trans+ History Week.
A spokesperson for BNP Paribas said: “BNP Paribas is a proud sponsor of the LGBT Awards, which are an opportunity to celebrate LGBT+ role models, and the organisations that see the inherent value in diversity and the critical importance of improving equality and the lives of LGBT+ people. We are committed to promoting Diversity & Inclusion and fight against discrimination across society. Established in 2009 in the UK, the BNP Paribas PRIDE network is now present in 30 of the Group’s countries and brings together more than 4,200 employees identifying themselves as LGBT+ or allies.
“BNP Paribas continues to simultaneously accelerate its withdrawal from fossil fuels and support the development of low-carbon energies whilst scaling up sustainable finance, as demonstrated by its number 1 global ranking for both Green Bonds and Sustainability Linked Bonds in 2023.
“The bank has announced it will no longer provide financing dedicated to the development of new oil and gas fields, regardless of the financing methods, and has a new and higher 2030 target for 90% low-carbon in the Group’s financing for energy production. By year end 2023, BNP Paribas had only a 0.3% market share of lending in fossil financing. (source: Dealogic)”
A spokesperson for Airbus said: “Naturally, we were disappointed that National Student Pride returned our sponsorship. It’s a wonderful event which exemplifies the importance of respecting everyone and working continuously to provide environments where we can be free to be our true selves, messages we echo through our active Pride@Airbus LGBTQ+ staff network.”
HSBC and Macquarie Capital both declined to comment.