Being an authentically proud Llama
Now we’re at the end of Pride Month, and on the day of London Pride, we’ve taken a look at the travel brands who did themselves proud in showing their support for the LGBTI community, but as part of a year round narrative.
What began as a commemoration of the Stonewall riots of 1969, Pride Month has grown into an annual celebration of LGBT rights and culture marked by festivals, parades and events around the world. Each year, we’ve become accustomed to seeing the international symbol of Pride - the rainbow flag - appearing in shops, offices, pubs and a multitude of other venues, and splashed across websites and other digital media, as brands and businesses use it as an opportunity to show their support for the queer community, and promote their commitment to inclusivity.
That’s of course a good thing. But the flipside of visibility is scrutiny, and brands who fly the rainbow flag each June must be comfortable that their intentions for doing so are sound. Aligning your brand to a cause - especially one as emotive and meaningful to millions as Pride - requires you to be able to demonstrate the authenticity of that belief. Can you really show that your support is more than flag-waving - that you’re making some kind of meaningful, and positive, difference to those whose cause you’re supporting?
If you can’t, then you’re window dressing - or in this case, rainbow washing.
This year’s Pride has once again been a chance for a number of travel brands to show that their support for the LGBT community, and inclusivity in general, extends beyond a short-live logo update to show the rainbow colours. For Virgin Atlantic, Out of Office, Celebrity Cruises, TTG, Aer Lingus and some others, support for Pride, and a wider commitment to a belief that travel should be for everyone, everywhere, is year-round and meaningful. Virgin Atlantic’s most recent TV spot, which once again saw them celebrating individuality and making a virtue of ‘being different’, reflecting a core brand differentiator - is the obvious example to use. For them, Pride is for life, not just for June.
But the eagerness of travel brands who can’t show that same authenticity to hitch their wagon to Pride as a quick win-way of demonstrating their openness, risks diluting the very thing they’re purporting to promote. If you’re treating it like a box to tick on your content calendar - that time you need to remind the social team to update the logo, and to post a blog about being ‘right behind you all’ before moving on to the next thing - then you’re missing the point.
It’s what your business is doing ‘back at base’ to support these causes the rest of the year that really counts. A bold and visible commitment to - and alignment of your brand with - a cause like Pride and the community it represents has to be part of a wider values-driven narrative that permeates every aspect of your business, from recruitment and workplace culture and behaviours, and the language and imagery you’re using in your internal and external communications, to the leadership and your front line staff. How intentional and constant is the allyship you’re using the Pride flag to demonstrate? How safe do LGBTI members of your team feel to be themselves at work throughout the rest of the year, and are they supported by an internal LGBTI group to highlight any issues that might arise, and clear D&I policies on discrimination and processes to deal with them? Do you have products that are designed for, or at least accommodate the needs of, LGBTI customers? How well informed do customers feel about the place they’re visiting on holiday with you? Do the suppliers you work with share your values around inclusivity?
There are brands in the travel sector who are getting it right, but there are many for whom Pride can look like little more than an exercise in re-badging. Hoping that updating your logo once a year will be enough to convince your people and your customers of your virtue isn’t even rainbow washing. It’s rainbow wishing.