Financial world with John

Written by John

June is the month of Pride, of the LGBTQ+ community and of equality. As is already known, almost everything can be used for making a profit or as an advertisement. Pride is no exception to this and in this article I will write about pride as a marketing tool. 

Let's support and maybe get some cash!

Pride has been growing in popularity in recent years and many people are starting to support this community even when they are heterosexual. People can support LGBTQ+ communities by wearing clothes with a Pride theme, participating in a pride march or simply by sharing some posts. However, some large companies have started to take advantage of it by making products with a pride theme. The most common is clothing and in the past years there was literally no clothing company in the world which didn't have a product with a pride theme. In particular Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein and H&M are some of the greatest supporters of Pride clothing. Dozens of new designs are made each year, mainly in June, and sold to people with the purpose of supporting LGBTQ+ communities, but in the end it's not so much about support as it is about great business! 

As Mr. Czeczlaw Walek, the CEO of Prague Pride says, the problem is that the cooperation with Pride often only attracts international companies. Some smaller companies are scared of a wave of criticism, which could actually be seen in the example of Czech brewing company Staropramen. As a reaction to their cooperation with Prague Pride, there were campaigns against drinking Staropramen beer. Fortunately in the end the brewing company increased their number of sold beers due to this campaign, and also maybe thanks to Prague Pride and their team which helps companies to deal with criticism, especially when responding to the haters.

Apple Watch LGBTQ+ - Apple Inc., apple.com

Czeczslaw Walek goes on to say that in the world there are about 7-9% of LGBTQ+ people in society. In Czech Republic this would be about 800 000 people, so it's not a small number anymore and companies are finding that they can turn a profit in this community and help them at the same time! 

Do companies support LGBTQ+ in the Czech Republic? 

Some big themes of Pride are colors, rainbows and equality, so almost every company involved in supporting the LGBTQ+ community uses these signs together with their logos. And yes, also in the Czech Republic we can see this imagery, for example in the products of companies such as Ikea, Apple and H&M. And even though many companies in the Czech Republic don't make products with these signs, they still support LGBTQ+ communities in some way.  You can see them all at Jsmefer.cz, where you can find for example the Czech antivirus company Avast, Czech condom brand Primeros and the train company RegioJet.

So how can Pride actually be connected with business?

LGBTQ+ community is not only about marches and discrimination from politicians anymore, big part of huge companies are supporting these people! Companies are creating products with LGBTQ+ colors or just supporting this community with donations. Now we definitely know that almost everything in the world can be used as a good marketing tool for literally every business!

Pride as a marketing tool - Tereza Nawrocká

SOURCES

https://www.jsmefer.cz

Jakub Křešnička, MAM.cz, LGBT je tématem i pro marketing firem, říká šéf Prague Pride, 25.12. 2020, https://mam.cz/zpravy/2020-12/lgbt-je-rozhodne-tematem-i-pro-marketing-firem-rika-sef-prague-pride/ 

Michaela Plíhalová, ihned.cz, Staropramen, Žufánek nebo Primeros. V Česku přibývá firem podporujících gaye a lesby, zatlačit mohou i na politiky, 8. 8. 2019, https://archiv.ihned.cz/c1-66620880-staropramen-zufanek-nebo-primeros-v-cesku-pribyva-firem-podporujicich-gaye-a-lesby-zatlacit-muzou-i-na-politiky