What is rainbow washing?
Pride month has always been a great opportunity to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, and historically there has been no shortage of brands and businesses keen to get involved. However, as the month’s momentum has grown since the very first riot at Stonewall in June 1969, there’s been a marked increase in ‘rainbow washing’ – also called ‘pink washing’. This is when companies use LGBTQ+ symbolism to appear supportive of the community – such as adding rainbow colours to logos and products during pride month – but fail to support them in any way that’s truly meaningful.
Rainbow washing examples
The most common form of this ‘slacktivism’ (i.e., showing support for causes without extending any actual effort) is adding rainbow colouring to marketing materials. But brands have also been known to try and cash in on the movement by creating Pride-month themed products or deals that don’t benefit the community at all.
A classic example was Xbox’s logo change in 2023. On June 1, the gaming giant incorporated the progress Pride flag into its logo – but shockingly few days later, the logo was changed to a hell-themed one instead, to support newly released game Diablo IV.
Not only did this result in rightly furious members of the LGBTQ+ community criticising the half-hearted support, but it played into anti-LGBTQ+ narratives that were circulating at the time. In America, some Republicans had been burning Pride imagery – which means that the profile picture swap provided an unfortunately perfect opportunity for rhetoric such as “perfect image for Pride. And every other sin”.
Another example is from Tesco, which releases a line of Pride merchandise every year, and donates 5% of the sale price to LGBTQ+ charity, Switchboard. While a donation is no doubt welcome, 5% of a typical £10 shirt is just 50p – a drop in the ocean when compared to the £2.74b the multinational retailer made in the UK in 2024/25.
The scale of the problem
Despite examples as extreme as Xbox being thankfully few and far between, the incidents aren’t isolated. Our research that reviewed content and conversations between June 19 2024 – June 18 2025 showed that negative sentiment around rainbow washing increased 123% globally, with the vast majority happening during Pride Month and the surrounding months.
Brand advice
So, how can brands avoid being on the receiving end of such accusations, whilst still getting involved in Pride Month?
It may seem simple, but the best bet is to use your common sense. Both incidents with Xbox and Tesco could have been avoided if the comms team thought through their actions, and what the consequences might have been. Taking a few moments to think through a marketing or communications decision before it is implemented is necessary to make sure that optics are considered and plans come from a place of sincerity instead of commercial cynicism.
Another surefire way to ensure that your brand will be seen as genuine and sincere is to enable LGBTQ+ staff, customers and community partners to input into – or even deliver – Pride Month campaigns. Beyond asking for their insights and engagement, however, it’s crucial that you’re prepared to actually listen to their views. Ignorance is one thing, but asking and then feigning ignorance appears even more sinister.
Energy PR’s own Brand Love report, which explores brand loyalty and love, found that consistency is key when resonating with your customers. People only truly love brands whose values chime with their own and are genuinely held. So, it’s no good supporting Pride Month in June when, for the rest of the year, the business rejects inclusivity and other values that are key to Pride.
Inconsistency isn’t just about time, it’s about geography too. Some brands have a partial pro-Pride strategy depending on which part of the world – or even part of the country – they are in. This cheapens the whole message of Pride: expressing joy, acceptance, solidarity and celebrating equality. Members of the community never stop being so, no matter where they are. So they will be understandably quick to criticise brands which pick and choose beliefs depending on the local market conditions.
By the same token, brands need to be aware that there may be repercussions of supporting Pride Month too. It’s entirely possible that anti-LGBTQ+ customers will push back against any display of inclusivity, and businesses may potentially lose their custom. However, the only way to support Pride Month and avoid charges of rainbow washing is to accept that this may happen, and stand up for the community with consistency.
Brands must also ensure that Pride Month activity fits with their personality, resulting in it feeling natural instead of forced, and avoiding feeling bland or worthy. Porsche’s Pride Month post is playful and impactful, but still displays effort – and the new and classic Porsches neatly conveys the brand’s heritage and its product diversity.
Finally, brands must accept that showing support for a single month won’t transform them instantly. They must be prepared to be challenged – and maybe even criticised – along the way, but most importantly, prepared to own their mistakes and commit to always doing better.
