Each year during Pride month, many high-profile brands change their logos to rainbow colours, claiming that this shows solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community. Although this can show surface-level support for LGBTQ+ people, in reality it is a performative and profit-motivated act, as many brands do very little to materially support the community, and in some cases actively oppose our rights. 

There is a case in favour of brands using rainbow logos, doing so visually shows and normalises support for the LGBTQ+ community despite the lack of concrete action accompanying it. This can be reassuring, particularly in the face of recent rises in homophobia and transphobia. Last Pride month we saw extreme backlash in the US against brands partnering with LGBTQ+ celebrities, like Dylan Mulvaney, during pride month, thus brands continuing to change their logos despite the potential for backlash does demonstrate some level of solidarity.

However, brands only changing their logos without any other action is a shallow and superficial act of “solidarity” and does very little to tackle homophobia and transphobia, alongside other issues faced by the LGBTQ+ community. We must remember Pride is a protest and not an advertising campaign. With the ever-growing number of anti LGBTQ+ legislation in many countries, we need high-profile brands to use their power and influence to resist this, rather than the mere gesture of a temporary rainbow logo. The fact that many big brands do not take that affirmative action shows that changing their logos has little to do with genuine allyship, and much more to do with their bottom line and surface level optics of inclusivity.

Even worse than not showing genuine support, many brands with Pride month logos actively work against LGBTQ+ rights during the rest of the year. In 2021 Walmart changed its logo to rainbow colours, yet had donated over $400,000 that same year to anti LGBTQ+ US politicians. A rainbow logo is demonstrably meaningless in this case. Many corporations have no scruples with the hypocrisy of taking advantage of the LGBTQ+ community as a marketing ploy whilst actively opposing our human rights. It is clear that in their eyes rainbow logos are a tactic through which they can exploit LGBTQ+ people as a group to manipulate profit from.

In general, no brand will change their logo if it does not directly benefit them. This is illustrated by the fact that brands changing their logos only started in recent years as LGBTQ+ rights have become more widely accepted, whereas brands did not dream of doing this when acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community was not a mainstream position. Feigned solidarity with the queer community allows brands to appeal to the attitudes of most of society, enabling them to increase interest and profits during Pride month. It can be inferred from this that brands may stop changing their logos to rainbow colours if societal attitudes were to shift against LGBTQ+ rights. We have seen the start of this in recent years, particularly in the US, and as a result some brands have ceased using rainbow logos for Pride month. For example, Verizon had a rainbow logo during Pride month in 2021, but not in 2022. If using rainbow logos during pride month was motivated by genuine support for the LGBTQ+ community, brands would have started doing this when the community was in dire need of it, and would not stop in the face of rising homophobia and transphobia. Changing their logos to rainbow colours merely allows brands to profit from the LGBTQ+ community, particularly as some brands release rainbow-themed products during pride month in addition to changing their logos. 

To conclude, if brands are going to continue using rainbow logos for Pride month, they should put their money where their mouth is and start materially supporting the LGBTQ+ community. Taking action against homophobia and transphobia, rather than just using our colours to generate extra profits is necessary and overdue. Without tangible action to support LGBTQ+ people, brands using rainbow logos are performative in their so called solidarity and achieve little to nothing to show for it.