With it being LBGT+ pride month, more and more businesses seem to be celebrating or promoting pride in one way or another. It seems like it's being pushed extra this year (or maybe i've been less busy, who knows). What are your thoughts on pride becoming such a commercialized campaign/pride month? I personally think it's good overall because part of pride includes acceptance of those in the community. At the same time, it seems sort've like they're taking advantage of the situation too much. All these companies promoting equality is great, but I almost wish they'd do it in a more subtle rate. It screams of "hey we're not bigoted and hateful of those who are different than we are. Buy our product". Anyone else share similar feelings? Curious what your thoughts are.
This isn't the only reason I'm not a big fan of Pride, but it's one of them. There's a difference between supporting the community and pandering. Too many of these companies fall into the second category
Yeah, I kind of think like that but personally, I feel like the exposure the community gets from this kind of outweighs the fact that a lot of why companies do this is probably petty reasoning like trying to make more money.
I feel like it's a fair trade off for more exposure. Plus if it's perceived as ingenuine then people will probably not respond to that marketing
It can be both good and bad. Good being- yay this is a step forward! Bad being- where were you before, when shit hit the fan everyday? You weren't advertising to us then, huh? But majorly it should be a good thing all around. And wooooo pride!
I think it's inevitable, at least in America. It kinda sucks when important things become just a marketing opportunity, but it happens to everything. Religious holidays, graduations, even days that honor historical figures end up being some appliance sale. It isn't necessarily "good", but the alternative is obscurity.
I don't think it's a good idea. I've only seen the white skittles and gay flag hanging in certain shops, but... a) they shouldn't focus exclusively on pride, there are other important annual events that don't get as much attention, such as black history month, eid, the Queen's birthday, etc. b) as mentioned before by others, it's their way of showing how "good" they are, to lure people into buying their products. c) pride was designed to remember the struggle that LGBT people had to go through in attaining equal rights. It just seems wrong to me to commercialise it as it seems that they are taking advantage of that struggle, but that's just my opinion. This is just how I see it in my area, so I'm not completely sure if that applies elsewhere to the same extent.
Reminds me of the 50 Jesus billboards on the start if the interstate highway here, though that seems a bit more extreme and "circle-jerky". I don't know, big companies always want a quick way to make a dollar despite their wealth. Even if the intentions aren't entirely in the right place however, I can see it pressuring it's workers and fellow businesses to share the attitude. Which is a good thing, even if it's just to keep their jobs.
I think you can be too cynical about this sort of thing. Our Pride parade was yesterday and seriously just about every major employer in the region had an LGBT employee group that marched, many touted their standing on the HRC equality index. Do companies have positive attitudes towards the community in order to make money? Yeah I suppose, whether that is attracting customers or attracting the best talent it benefits us and them. A lot of major companies are really putting their money on the line for these things. I work for a major financial firm and years ago, before marriage equality, they offered domestic partner insurance. Here in the States insurance your company provides to someone that is not related to the employee is a taxable fringe benefit, which means effectively gay people were paying more to insure their partners than straight people were to insure their spouses. Now that extra money didn't go to the company, it went to the government so it would be really easy for the firm to just say "hey, it's the law what are we supposed to do" but instead they decided it wasn't fair so they actually scaled up the pay of employees like me to compensate for the extra taxation. They literally paid me extra to ensure that my take home would be the same as a comparable straight employee. In my book that's pretty amazing. Companies want good employees and more and more they're realizing that equality measures are an excellent way to get them.
To the extent that pride is no longer entirely a symbol of struggle in wealthy Western nations, I think it's absolutely acceptable for companies to capitalise on demonstrating their appropriateness for prospective LGBT employees and customers, if it involves pumping political, social and financial capital into pride. The ability for organisers to advertise just a little more and for LGBT charities to get just that little bit more exposure and for LGBT people in commercial settings to get just a little bit more legitimacy among their peers is really valuable. It means more people go to pride, means that more people feel that pride and non-heterosexual, non-cisgender sexual and gender identity are not transgressive but part of the broader community and it means that LGBT organisations have more scope to lobby. These companies don't just want profit, though I'm not denying the profit motive as the desicive factor. They also put their money where their mouth is by financially backing LGBT organisations through pride and by having their ads and charity affiliates do work for LGBT causes. Regardless of baser motive, that's an enormously positive thing from organisations And where companies are engaging with LGBT lobbying organisations and adopting LGBT-friendly workplace policies, those with global operations are just that little bit more likely to become sources of pressure in less LGBT-friendly environments globally and more likely to accept LGBT rights as a valid part of the ethical calculus for governments and companies to decide what is acceptable practice. If it encourages profits for an LGBT-friendly company verus a homophobic one, that's valuable. If it changes their ethics codes, that's valuable. If it stops them lobbying against Western sanctions for anti-LGBT human rights abuses, that's valuable. The vaguer costs of allowing pride to be commercialised have to balanced against the very practical benefits of bringing pride money, of creating positive cultural competition between companies and in changing company practices. I think that's a very good tradeoff to make.
I think there is a strong case for commercial endorsement and sponsorship. When a large, wealth creating company or organisation throws its weight behind Pride it cranks up pressure on the hostile and bigoted right and I'm all in favour of that.
I adore it. Things are so much livelier and colorful when businesses try to outdo each other who can show the brightest flags. I like it as much as I like the commercialisation of Christmas and Halloween.
