Text by Pyr Marcondes, Senior Partner at Pipeline Capital.
“Beyond the Rainbow” report by WPP, the largest agency holding company in the world, concludes that companies and brands are still at a superficial level of facing and dealing with issues related to the LGBTQ+ world, which, by the way, is exactly our world, this one we came from.
The report records, for example, that more than 1 in 3 people who identify as LGBTQ+ suffered some type of discrimination in 2020 in the United States. experienced by 3 out of 5 transgender people over the same period.
The report shows that 52% of LGBTQ+ people surveyed say they like it when brands change their logos for Pride Month, but that this is actually very low: 3 out of 4 LGBTQ+ people and 50% of non-LGBTQ+ people think that brands need to do more.
According to the report, 67% of LGBTQ+ people and 67% of non-queer people believe there should be more advertising featuring queer people. And 59% of queer people surveyed feel that current representation feels “tokenistic” (i.e., not effective and factual, but just designed to look like something it is not). That percentage jumps to 67% for queer people of color and 70% for trans and non-binary respondents.
The study, created in partnership with the company’s LGBTQ+ group Unite and its data group Choreograph, surveyed 3,500 queer people in the UK, US and Canada, along with 4,000 non-LGBTQ+ people in those countries. To help distribute the survey to more diverse groups, the companies have also partnered with organizations such as UK Black Pride, and Diva, HRC and myGwork magazines.
“Inclusion signals in communication are only as effective as the customer experience these communications promise,” said David Adamson, deputy head of strategy at The Partnership and founder of WPP Unite, quoted in the study. “If your new brand ad includes trans characters, but a trans customer comes to your site and fails to register for your products and services in a way that reflects their gender identity, you have lost them and frustrated them.”
A majority of queer and non-queer people think gender will become more fluid – 74% and 61% respectively. People ages 18 to 24 are 27% more likely to think this way than those ages 35 and older, according to the survey.
Queer media is not just for queer people. Straight people also want queer content, according to the report – 60%, to be precise.
While queer people’s desire for gay media is pretty much the same across generations, the same cannot be said for straight people. While 85% of non-LGBTQ+ 18-24 year olds want queer media, that percentage drops consistently with older demographics. For example, only 39% of people over 65 want to see queer media, according to the report.
When it comes to representation, only 38% of queer people feel good about how they are represented in the media.
There is much more to the study.
The main facts are a few: what a good thing WPP did; how bad that we are still far from ideal; it’s good that we are walking; too bad we still have to talk about this topic today.
But as long as it’s necessary, we’ll keep talking.
Text by Pyr Marcondes, Senior Partner at Pipeline Capital
Text originally published by ProXXIma.
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