It’s that time of year again. Pride Month will begin on Sunday 1 June.

But this year, all conversations about this feel like threading a needle. We all walk a fine line between cringe and credibility, writes Bryan Goodpaster, VP of foresight and cultural strategy at Marks.

The very concept of inclusion is currently under attack. When billionaires are casually throwing up Nazi salutes on national television, it’s hard to stomach another round of “diverse teams drive better ROI”.

This year, Pride organisers are losing at least 10% of their brand sponsorships compared to last year.

The rollback of DEI policies has separated the brands standing tall against those retreating. But less sponsorship doesn’t just mean less money. With brands reducing, hiding or entirely cutting their support for Pride events, it means less security, less access, and less visibility for LGBTQ+ communities.

Brands need to realise diversity isn’t just another KPI or a checkbox for their ERG reports. Treating it as a corporate virtue signal might be the most insulting approach of all.

An uncomfortable reckoning

For years, brands have packaged social progress as brand equity. They transformed causes into campaigns, movements into marketing opportunities. They tried to convince consumers that purchasing decisions were moral declarations. They sold the seductive fiction that we could self-correct societal problems through consumption.

How warped was it to believe we could shop our way to justice?

Brands stopped being brands and positioned themselves as movements rather than commercial entities.

Benetton made us uncomfortable. Nike took a knee for racial injustice. Lush threw bricks at industry norms. Patagonia gave its brand back to the Earth.

And while these behaviours were real and meaningful, somewhere along the way intention got lost, and movements became marketing tropes.

For many, taking a stance on inclusion and social change came with consequences. A decade later, we’re skirting closer to fascist and misogynist ideologies than anyone would care to admit.

So, when solidarity demands more sacrifice than ever, brands will need to come to terms with some uncomfortable truths.

Creativity demands friction

In a world where brands are abandoning their DEI commitments at the first sign of backlash, let’s call out the cowardice.

Homogeneity doesn’t just set the tone for uninspired marketing – it guarantees creative death.

Creativity is a contact sport. If everyone on your team looks the same, thinks the same, experiences life the same way, who exactly is providing the necessary collision of ideas?

The contradiction is stark.

Multinational brands promote social transformation with bold proclamations about equity and justice for marginalised communities, while simultaneously contributing to declining living standards.

Then they retreat at the first hint of controversy.

The takeaway? Brands don’t get credit for being progressive or inclusive when their commitments collapse under pressure.

To avoid performative allyship, brands must build inclusive teams, champion uncomfortable conversations, and set expectations internally that bravery is part of the brief.

Creativity demands it.

Convenient convictions come at a cost

When Nike backed Colin Kaepernick, it wasn’t just making a statement, it was demonstrating what happens when conviction meets commerce.

Despite the backlash, boycotts, and burning shoes, it saw a 31% spike in sales and a $6bn (£4.43bn) increase in brand value.

But here’s what Nike understood that most brands don’t: supporting a cause means supporting it even when it’s inconvenient.

Even when it might cost you something. The swiftness with which brands have abandoned their “values” reveals the hollow centre of purpose-driven marketing.

It’s about intention, not attention. And that’s where most brands fall short. True intention is embedded – in hiring practices, in leadership representation, in who gets to make the decisions behind the scenes. It’s not a press release. It’s not a seasonal campaign.

If there is such a thing as a brand’s promise, then brands need to start keeping them. If a brand’s support disappears the moment it becomes inconvenient, that was never intention.

That was marketing.

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Rainbow-washing has no place in modern brands

Let’s be crystal clear: This Pride Month, if brands are approaching diversity like a content calendar checkbox, they shouldn’t.

We’ve moved beyond the era when slapping a rainbow on your logo for thirty days counts as allyship – and maybe that is progress.

Consumers can smell the inauthenticity. They’ve watched brands make bold proclamations about equity and justice only to quietly roll back commitments when political winds shift.

Anheuser-Busch, Comcast and Nissan are just a few names already being called out by the Washington Post for backing out of this year’s San Francisco Pride.

Real allyship looks different.

Taks Costco, the retailer faced shareholder pressure to abandon its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, but stood firm. The company’s board unanimously recommended rejecting the proposal, and over 98% of shareholders agreed, reinforcing Costco’s commitment to DEI principles.

Then there’s Room & Board, a brand with a long-standing history of supporting LGBTQ+ rights. Beyond offering domestic partner benefits for over two decades, the company has actively opposed discriminatory legislation, such as the Minnesota marriage amendment in 2012 and North Carolina’s HB2 law in 2017.

Its consistent support includes partnerships with LGBTQ+ organisations across the US, demonstrating a commitment that extends beyond Pride Month.

Meanwhile, Willy Chavarria used his Paris Fashion Week debut to spotlight LGBTQ+ rights. The American fashion designer collaborated with Tinder and the Human Rights Campaign to donate proceeds from his collection to support the community.

Authentic support isn’t seasonal. It’s embedded in these brands’ operations, from internal policies to public advocacy.

When support is part of a company’s DNA, it doesn’t waver with shifting political climates.

Progress demands courage

The brands that will matter in the future aren’t the ones playing it safe.

They’re the ones building authentically diverse teams that reflect the world as it is – complicated, messy, and full of productive tension.

For example, Channel 4 in the UK is a brand that has made diversity a creative engine, not an HR metric. Its programming, casting, and behind-the-scenes representation show it.

Then there’s the skincare disruptor The Ordinary, which weaves inclusivity into everything from R&D to representation, proving it’s possible to scale without sanitising your stance.

Brands must stop treating diversity as something they do for optics. Instead, they must start recognising it for what it is, the only reliable path to originality in a world suffocated by sameness.

Rethinking Pride

This Pride, the most radical act may just be one of humility.

We need to see brands wield their influence with greater care and consciousness than before and acknowledge that meaningful diversity isn’t about looking progressive. It’s about staying relevant in a world that has moved beyond performative allyship.

Diversity isn’t the revolution, it’s the only way for brands to create anything worth remembering.