After Backlash, Target Becomes Latest Brand to Shift Pride Marketing

For years, Pride Month, the annual celebration for LGBTQ Americans, has provided a marketing opportunity for companies to leverage the spending power of a group with growing financial, political, and social clout.

While these efforts have always met resistance, brands and marketers say the country’s current political environment — particularly when it comes to transgender issues — has made this year’s campaigns more complicated. This week, Target became the latest company to reconsider its approach after facing criticism for its Pride collection, which included children’s clothing and books, which sparked outrage from some right-wing parties.

The retailer moved its Pride displays — which include shirts with rainbow-striped collars, yellow hoodies that read “Not a Phase,” and baby clothes and accessories — from the entrances of some Target stores across the country and placed them in the back.

Target said it was concerned “about threats that could affect the safety and well-being of our team members at work” after some customers yelled at employees and threw Pride-themed merchandise on the floor.

Items that angered some customers included a one-piece tuck-in swimsuit – a swimsuit with extra material in the crotch area for people who want to hide their genitals. Some critics incorrectly claimed that the swimsuit would be sold to children; Target said it’s only available in adult sizes. The collection also includes children’s books on transgender issues and gender turnover.

A woman captured a TikTok video at a Target store on Monday, in which she got angry when she saw a greeting card that read “So Glad You Came Out” and a yellow onesie that read “¡Bien Proud!”

“If that doesn’t give you reason to boycott Target, I don’t know what is,” she said.

In a statement, a company spokeswoman said, “Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing elements that have been at the heart of the most significant confrontational behavior.” Month, remains committed to the LGBTQ community and “stands by their side in the celebration of Pride Month and throughout the year.”

While Target said its decision was made in the interests of employee safety, many said its actions — coupled with a conservative backlash against Bud Light after working with a transgender influencer — could anger the community it sought to support . And those who initially criticized Target and Bud Light may now feel even more encouraged to attack integrative initiatives by other companies.

“We are in a new situation here where the safety and security of employees are being compromised by policies and targets,” said Vanitha Swaminathan, professor of marketing at the University of Pittsburgh. “I can’t say that employee safety can be neglected. That is the core of what a company must do. At the same time, from a policy perspective, Target can still support its original stance. It is sad to see that we have reached this point in our culture struggles.”

Marketing campaigns around Pride month in June have become routine for many companies, although there has been some resistance at times. Last year, for example, Pizza Hut faced boycott calls after the company recommended Big Wig, a book about drag performers, as part of its summer reading program for children.

Still, companies and marketers say the political climate is different this year — largely because a number of Republican-run states have introduced and passed legislation restricting transitional care for transgender minors and adults, and transgender rights for many conservatives have become an exciting topic.

GLAAD, the LGBTQ advocacy group that works with more than 160 companies, is considering collaborating communications experts at its GLAAD Media Institute with brands planning Pride Month celebrations so they can better respond to criticism.

“We feel that given the politicization of trans and gender non-conforming people, we’re at a point where we probably need to build a Pride war room for brands so we can fight back,” says Sarah Kate Ellis of the group CEO, said in an interview.

On Thursday, GLAAD and six other advocacy groups called on Target to return all removed Pride items to its stores and website and to release a statement “within the next 24 hours” reaffirming its commitment to the LGBTQ community.

In the face of criticism and calls for boycotts on social media, most companies have found that outrage has quickly died down.

Then Bud Light happened. Owned by beer giant Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light continues to struggle with the aftermath of a social media campaign with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in mid-March. Following calls to boycott the beer, sales in the four weeks to mid-May fell more than 23 percent from a year earlier, according to data from research firm NIQ and Bump Williams Consulting, which works with the alcoholic beverage industry.

In some Southern markets, such as Jacksonville, Florida and New Orleans, Bud Light sales fell 40 percent over the four-week period.

Anheuser-Busch, which has released rainbow-colored bottles and cans of Bud Light for Pride Month for the past few years, did not respond to a question about its plans for this year.

Some marketing and communications consultants said the negative reaction to Bud Light’s campaign, which featured Ms Mulvaney, was a product of the beer’s generally more politically conservative consumer base. Companies like Nike or Starbucks can more easily develop products or campaigns around gay and transgender issues or Pride Month because their consumers tend to be younger and more sophisticated, said David Johnson, general manager of Strategic Vision PR Group in Atlanta.

“If they embrace the gay or transgender community, it doesn’t go against their core beliefs,” he said.

A number of companies are moving forward with their Pride Month plans. In June, the Coors Light Denver Pride Parade parade through the city. Ads for a one-piece Adidas swimsuit by South African queer designer Rich Mnisi have featured a transgender man as a model. Levi’s has a campaign where half a dozen gay and transgender people talk about how they look when they wear the company’s jeans and tops.

But a number of other companies are notably less open about specific Pride Month plans. And some LGBTQ advocates criticized Target because he seemed to give in to the pressure. (The company’s decision came as retail workers have faced increasing aggressive behavior from customers since the pandemic began.)

Target also removed a Pride line from Rebound, a London-based LGBTQ fashion and accessories company whose designs have been criticized in part for depicting satanic symbols like pentagrams and a T-shirt that read “Satan respects pronouns.” Bouncing did not respond to a request for comment.

“We’ll find out over the next week which companies are continuing to push and run Pride Month campaigns,” said Matt Skallerud, president of Pink Media, which specializes in LGBTQ online marketing. “If companies that we know have supported Pride Month don’t show up this year, their absence will be noticed and I would worry that it could hurt them.”

Stakeholders fear that all of this could have a chilling effect, especially when it comes to achieving a wider representation of LGBTQ people in advertising.

“White gay men are the segment most likely to be represented on our screens, be it in programming or in advertising,” pHelp Lisette Arsuaga, co-founder of the Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing. “We have now begun to push for a more inclusive representation of all letters within LGBTQ.”

According to a recent GLAAD study, general consumer sentiment regarding the portrayal of transgender people on television and in advertising has not changed. In a survey conducted in February, GLAAD said that 75 percent of people who didn’t identify as LGBTQ felt comfortable having those people represented in marketing campaigns. This number has remained stable as of 2020.

“You can certainly launch an advertising campaign and involve LGBTQ people in it,” said Ms. Ellis of GLAAD. “And at the same time, there’s this political right arm that you have to be aware of when you’re doing it and you just have to be prepared for that.”