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A new year, a moment to look back. About diversity and inclusion in marketing, and where all that information comes from – and goes. And especially why it is necessary.

I’ve been writing about ‘Marketing the Rainbow‘ almost weekly for some time now from my PhD research of the same name – in Dutch 52 articles in 2022 to be exact, in English around 25 – so chances are you’ve seen one come by. After 13 years of research, I have collected about 1,000 pages of content. However, my dissertation can only be 250 pages, which means that I have a lot of material left: I publish about it for you, for both education and entertainment.

How not to do it, how it can be done, how it is done very well, why, and what you should take into account. And above all: it is not just a trend or an idea. It’s still on the rise, invariably good for your bottom line (pun intended) and won’t disappear – it will change, and I’ll keep you posted on that too.

NB: I mainly look at LGBT diversity in MarCom, but as a strategic subject this cannot be seen separately from all other types of diversity. The lead was taken by women, later the elderly (and young people) were also seen more, not so long ago ethnic minorities were added and even more recently people with disabilities. The sixth ‘minority’, defined by the EU, is religion, but it doesn’t really play a role in marketing – although that’s where most of the protests against diversity come from.

Who, what, how?
As a background: I am from 1961 and now I am 61. I have been a member of the LGBT community all this time, although not very consciously in the first years. I came to Amsterdam in 1987 for my first job, in my first car, to my first own apartment, had my coming out and two weeks later met the man with whom I have been together for almost 36 years now. There was no question of getting married in 1987, so when quite unexpectedly, within 6 months it suddenly became possible in 2001, we were not really prepared for it. That was the first country in the world – there are now 29. We still call it ‘gay marriage’, but officially it is called ‘opening civil marriage to same-sex partners’.

I will explain in a moment that ‘gay marriage’ is important for marketing.

Fun fact: homosexual behavior has been observed in more than 1,500 animal species. Marketing, as we know it, only by 1, as well as homophobia.

How it started
When my high school dean asked me, as a 16-year-old, what I wanted to study, I said Journalism. However, my high school was “neatly” Christian and he said the School of Journalism “wasn’t very well known.” He meant: they are left-wing rascals. He advised me to study law, because ‘then I could still go in all directions’. So it wasn’t my first choice, but I must say it was good advice. I studied International Law in Leiden (with a fairly spectacular 4-month internship in Moscow in 1984), a major that only emerged when I was already in my first year, and I was the first to graduate in 1984.

Master’s in hand. Never had the idea of doing anything with law, so after my military service I started as a management trainee at the ING group in marketing and sales. Hey, nice job, I liked that.

Publish!
I’ve been publishing for years, it started during my studies and I continued that during my first jobs. Back then I still wrote (on paper!) about my profession, then insurance, later also about radio and telecom. However, a few years ago I saw such beautiful things happening in the rainbow marketing business at IKEA and Absolut vodka that I devoted my first articles to it.

Since then I have published for the three major Dutch blog sites: Marketingfacts about trends and industries (travel, entertainment, real estate, cars), for MarketingTribune mainly about brands, for Frankwatching about online related themes – and in English via my own platforms, OutBüro, LGBTQ Nation and – of course – ILOVEGAY. The highlights were Audiotrends: podcasts – are they really breaking through? on Frankwatching In 2018, which was read almost 25,000 times, Complex radio landscape offers opportunities on MarketingTribune with no less than 41,000 readers and in my current area of interest The Absolut champion in gay marketing that had more than 35,000 readers.

Turnaround: 2015
My friend and colleague in New York, Mike Wilke, who once founded the Commercial Closet archive, now called AdRespect. That archive counts more than 7,000 examples of rainbow advertising since prehistoric times, which in our area of interest is theoretically the 1940s, but in practice the 1980s. His archive was and is a valuable source of documentation and inspiration. I met him about 20 years ago at a conference in Milan, and we have been exchanging experiences ever since. That was 1-2x per month for a long time, but since 2015 it is almost impossible to keep up. And that’s because of ‘gay marriage’.

In June 2015, SCOTUS declared that people of the same sex can also marry each other in the US, and that meant not only many weddings (with accompanying marketing and spending explosion: 4 billion dollars for the latter) but also the official statement: LGBT exist, they are people, they have equal rights, and they are consumers. Period. But that period was actually a : or a ; because prior to that ruling, the progressive brands and companies already made a case for the cause by expressly speaking out through a record number of ‘amicus briefs’ (literally ‘friend-of-the-court briefing’, and no fewer than 148 of them) and advertising campaigns , but the rainbows really burst all over the scene after the verdict. First to celebrate, but soon it became a recurring part of marketing: it was added to the checklist of the advertising agencies and marketing departments, sometimes a bit too obvious, but one learns by doing. Remarkably, this happened not only in the US, but worldwide.

We down-to-earth Dutch people had seen and done this for a long time, but it has of course also had an effect here because advertising campaigns are no longer country-specific. In the Netherlands there are indeed ‘explicit’ campaigns, but much more often ‘casual’ representation. I’m fine with both, but especially appreciate the latter. And when I talk about representation, I certainly also mean that in film and on TV, where Netflix is a role model.

Three dissertation-experiential outcomes
(because I also like to invent new words)

The first result of my research is the formula: Representation –> visibility –> normalization –> tolerance –> acceptance –> respect. I wrote about this for ILOVEGAY, and as I mentioned in the introduction, the conclusion is that diversity is good for your operating result, and is also important for B2B and Non-profit.

The second is the addition of the new abbreviations: ‘From B2C and B2B to B2G and G2G (oh, and G2C)‘.

And then, just to reveal the secret: that LGBT are interesting as consumers is not (only) due to their sexual identity or orientation, but mainly to the lack of children in 90% of those households. Heterosexuals without kids are almost as interesting, but you can’t find them: they don’t have sports clubs, parades, festivals, print or online media. But there is more: read ‘4 reasons to put your diversity into practice’, which also gives two bonus reasons.

Articles
When I now prepare an article and the materials emerge from my archives, I always do a Google update, because so much is happening and continues to happen that there will always be material, print ads, campaigns and online publications that I had missed. So although a ‘case study’ is often ready-made on my website (in English), it often takes me 1-3 days to translate and update everything.

Attention
What should you pay attention to in ‘Marketing the Rainbow’? This can both be the use of LGBT themes in your communications, as well as approaching that target group.

I’ve talked about the use and abuse of humour, about bizarre advertisements and about cultural or social sensitivities. I wrote about the alphabet soup, which is also a huge challenge for the community itself. I championed the six-color rainbow flag, where others made their appearance. The pronouns received attention: how do you speak of her/him/their? But also, because of the BLM, #METOO and cancel culture, I warned against the New Morality, people who appropriate the outrage of others, where ‘those others’ are not outraged at all.

I showed how much hate there was: especially with videos that go viral, like recently J&B and earlier Samsung. Hatred is often accompanied by the threat of a boycott, but that almost always has the opposite effect. But I also mentioned that ‘Get woke, go broke’ is a slogan that has been used as an anti-diversity argument, but has never materialized, even though Gillette was on the edge with their toxic masculinity. And please stop with the StoneToss meme ‘Burgers?’.

I paid attention to transgender marketing, where I had to learn for myself that you don’t talk about transgenders (because it’s an adjective) but about trans(gender) people. It also turned out that I could still make corrections to my article after publication, but not to the title because that would result in SEO-technical penalty points.

Pinkwashing
Every year in June, but usually in the week leading up to Pride Amsterdam, I am approached by the most diverse media to give my opinion on companies’ activities in the field of rainbow marketing. ‘Isn’t that pinkwashing?!’ is usually the starting point of the journalist. To be clear, pinkwashing is pretending to support the LGBT community, but only taking advantage of the moment to make money from it.
After all, in September you will no longer see all those rainbow logos and products. No, usually not. But that doesn’t mean the attention isn’t sincere, and that the company only wants to make a profit. In October you see a lot of pink ribbons, does that mean that those companies no longer care about breast cancer in November? I always look at the design of the campaign: is it anchored in company policy? Are there also employment conditions aimed at LGBT people? Is it for a charity? How does a brand behave for the rest of the year? My conclusion is that in 80% of the cases it is well-intentioned – but there is often room for improvement – and that 20% of the actions involve pinkwashing.

In the meantime I have also officially set up an advisory function with a website, which is also called Marketing the Rainbow.

Incidentally, I also hear more and more from students, both VWO and HBO/WO, who choose the theme as the subject for a paper. I have been able to give guest lectures on this subject at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences a few times. The Millennials and GenZ are critical, informed consumers, who contribute greatly to openness and tolerance (and ultimately respect), which in turn influence companies.

And finally: Supplier diversity
One new criterion in assessing pinkwashing, or a company’s D&I policy, is Supplier Diversity. And that also has to do with marketing! Read more about this in The Three Stages of Diversity, or how SCM supports marketing. Originating in the US, it has now become an object of attention, also in Europe. However, companies do not know what to do with it, and although you can still identify a company owned by women in the Chamber of Commerce, there are no flags for LGBT entrepreneurs anywhere. For that purpose, I co-founded the BeNeLux LGBTIQ+ Business Chamber (BGLBC) last summer, which will validate LGBT entrepreneurs under European wings and help companies set up diverse SCM (Supply Chain Management).

Conclusion
I always like to end with a conclusion. As a learning moment, as an observation and overview, or to briefly evaluate the brand and give it a score. And here to say: ‘Marketing the Rainbow is here to stay’, I will continue to provide you with interesting, inspiring, shocking and above all colorful campaigns. As a marketer, do you remember that you take diversity into account (casually or explicitly) and if you work for a media or advertising agency: make sure that your customer also appears in LGBT media or at events and that their campaign statements are viewed through an inclusivity lens (possibly with a checklist).

Alfred Verhoeven is a marketer and is in the final phase of his PhD research Marketing the Rainbow. He previously wrote for ILOVEGAY about , Sport and (un)sportmanship, Why you need a supplier diversity program, BeNeLux LGBTIQ+ Business Chamber (BGLBC), From B2C and B2B to B2G and G2G (oh, and G2C), The Men from Atlantis, The other kind of cruising, Booking.com, Home Deco, Haters and trolls: the ‘letter to the editor’ of the 21st century, 5 Bizarre LGBT Videos, TRANSparency, Transgender persons as a target group, Matchmaking, 5 videos that went viral, From Representation To Respect, Cultural sensitivities and social involvement in marketing, 4 reasons to practice diversity and The Rules of Market Segmentation.