Pride in Marketing Research
By Grace Brown
The month of June is filled with events, with graduations, Father’s Day and the official start of summer just to name a few. But despite some being unaware June is also LGBT Pride month. What does that mean exactly? According to the Library of Congress, “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month (LGBT Pride Month) is currently celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan. The Stonewall riots were a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States.”
To complement the rise in celebrations both across the U.S. and world in recent years, brands have used the month to bring attention and a little more color to the month. Spotify in addition to offering several Pride themed public playlists, is adding a colorful feature to the volume bar on both the desktop apps. Users will see a rainbow gradient instead of traditional green volume bar will when music is turned up to max volume, as well as a Pride-themed celebratory message above the bar. Amazon and their employee LGBTQ affinity group, glamazon, are partnering with the Human Right’s Campaign all month to bring Pride facts to skills Alexa, as well as using the Spheres the company built at its downtown Seattle headquarters to show off for Pride. The glass domes, which serve as a unique, plant-filled urban oasis and workspace for Amazon employees, are awash in the rainbow colors of Pride to help officially kick off the company’s efforts to recognize the LGBTQ community.
These aren’t the only companies celebrating and giving back. AT&T recently announced its partnership with the Trevor Project, a crisis counseling service for LGBTQ youth, and that the telecommunications giant is planning to provide more than $675,000 worth of AT&T products and services as well as technology & connectivity expertise, in addition to its $1 million donation to the Project. The online gaming community Twitch this month is launched its #TwitchUnity campaign to not only raise money for community causes, but to also highlight members of the LGBTQ community. And the American shoe company Converse announced its partnership with celebrity Miley Cyrus on its 2018 Converse Pride Collection, a collection in which “all net proceeds will support LGBTQ+ youth community partners globally, including the Happy Hippie Foundation, It Gets Better Project, Minus 18 and RainbowYOUTH.”.
Brands combining celebration, and a promise to give back to the LGBTQ community highlight what being a social-aware and responsible in 2018 is all about. Seeing the Marketing Research industry take steps in the right direction is something we can all have pride in.