About two weeks ago, Oreo launched a campaign to celebrate LGBTQ+ families; in collaboration with PFLAG National, the first and largest organization for individuals and families who are a part of the community, the company produced pride-themed cookies and announced that they will only be gifting them to those who “perform acts of allyship for the LGBTQ+ community.” On National Coming Out Day, October 11th, Oreo’s brand twitter posted pictures of their cookies with different colored fillings that match the color of certain pride flags, transgender, pansexual, bisexual, and lesbian. Not everyone was pleased with this, initially branding the cookies as a “rainbow capitalism moment” (as stated by PinkNews), but the community’s perception of them shifted once the company specified its intent with the product and clarified that they would not be selling them.
Unlike many companies, Oreo is honoring LGBTQ+ people, their family, and their histories; the company even released a short film called Proud Parent, that promoted the importance of allyship and creating a more accepting world. “Pride for Profit” is a term used to describe companies using promotional ads and pride-themed products to further the success of their brand during holidays that celebrate LGBTQ+ people. During pride month especially, companies will do the bare minimum to show support for the community by doing insignificant things like changing the logos in their profile pictures on social media to rainbow colors or releasing a line of pride merchandise. This would not be such an issue if these things actually benefited the community and raised awareness for the issues it faces; the majority of brands do not even donate a portion of their sales on pride products to LGBTQ+ charities.
According to the various sources cited on a Yahoo! Finance article, only 64% of these brands are donating to relevant LGBTQ+ charities, meaning that every 2 in 5 of these companies are not. The website also states that 12% of companies with Pride campaigns in 2019 were rated under 80% by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for their equality policies. HRC says, “The majority fail to provide equal domestic partner medical and soft benefits for LGBT+ people, and show a lack of equal health coverage for individuals without exclusion for medically necessary care.” Companies like H&M only have a Corporate Equality Index Score of 45% despite having produced a collection of pride products.
Companies that do not even provide their employees who are a part of the community with a safe work environment are being praised for selling pride-related merchandise. It is not enough to support LGBTQ+ people one month of the year; these companies should be expected to constantly work towards making the world a more loving, accepting place. The struggles of people with these identities are not things to be used as fuel for corporate greed; the sacrifices people in the community have made deserve to be acknowledged and the members deserve to be validated and celebrated.
I get this, but honestly companies do this with all types of people, I think they are still being supportive by bringing attention to it, but companies hardly ever donate to causes, and if they do it’s pretty much always some kind of sales pitch to make you feel better for spending money, because big companies really don’t care about anything unfortunately.
i LOVE this post, especially because it brings in an implication about corporate greed and how that plays through socioeconomics. someone could bring up the point of how everything a large company does is for media attention, but that’s… exactly why it’s a problem. we should have companies on our side regardless of how it will benefit them in the long run, and if they’re not, there’s something seriously wrong with our country and its economic system – specifically, how corporations are harming minority communities. this post is very deep and complex, and definitely something any reader will leave wanting to learn more about.