17109: Publishers Perceive Performative Pride Pffft!

 

Digiday sorta celebrated Pride Month by reporting LGBTQIA+ publishers have experienced diminishing advertising support.

 

When performative Pride meets politics, advertisers head straight for the exit.

 

LGBTQ+ publishers grapple with a Pride Month ad spend slowdown

 

By Sara Guaglione

 

LGBTQ+-focused publishers faced a tougher-than-usual Pride month this June, as ad dollars failed to materialize. 

 

Some saw fewer new advertisers and lower ad spend this Pride month compared to last year. 

 

Execs at four LGBTQ+-focused publishers Digiday spoke to attributed the slowdowns and pullbacks to the current social and political climate. 

 

Some blamed the Trump administration’s pushback on diversity, equity and inclusion programs (ad budgets spent with LGBTQ+-focused publishers typically come out of multicultural marketing commitments). Others said advertisers have been more cautious with LGBTQ+ media spending since the 2023 backlash to Bud Light’s Pride campaign featuring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. And the current economic climate is the cherry on top, they said. Corporate Pride sponsorships overall are shrinking this year, for these same reasons. 

 

Ad agency Burrell Communications Group is among those struggling to get brands to commit spending with LGBTQ+ publications, and has seen multicultural budgets get shaved, according to chief strategy officer God-Is-Rivera. “I am seeing this mad scramble of, ‘what can we do to keep doing this?’ Or at least, if it was 100% funded, ‘can we keep it at 50% funded?’” she said. 

 

If a brand’s values align with LGBTQ+ publishers and their audience, it shouldn’t pull ad spend at contentious times like these, stressed God-Is Rivera. “Are you going to be someone else every four years in the U.S.?… Brand values need to be unshakable,” she said. “They need to parse through what that looks like among sentiment shifts… I’m seeing this behavior that’s unsustainable.”

 

While the outcome is less dire than the dwindling Pride Month brand deals for LGBTQ+ influencers, the slowdown means these publishers are grappling with less revenue than they expected so far this year. 

 

One LGBTQ+ publishing company’s Pride Month ad revenue is about a third less than it was last year, with about 30% fewer deals year-over-year, according to its CEO, who asked not to be identified to speak candidly. Ad revenue for Revry, an LGBTQ+-focused connected TV streaming network, is flat this June year over year.

 

“Several brands that we had been in deep discussions with in early 2025 implied their reticence to be in an LGBTQ+ environment given the political climate — and ultimately passed. One brand in particular actually had a Pride campaign, which got pulled at the last minute,” Mark Tevis, Revry’s evp of sales & partnerships, told Digiday in an email. He declined to name names.

 

The anonymous CEO told Digiday their company’s advertisers sit in two buckets: one that spends with their publications throughout the year, and another that “pops up like whack-a-mole” around events like Pride. Ad spend from brands in the first bucket has remained consistent this year, they said. 

 

But the ones in the second bucket have “declined significantly,” the CEO said. Pride Month is typically their company’s single-highest revenue month. This year, their company won’t hit its Q2 revenue goal. The publisher’s ad revenue is 95% direct sold, and the rest programmatic, according to the CEO. 

 

But their company planned for this, once Trump was elected, they added. They’ve had to be more cautious with spending this year, cutting back on large events around Pride.

“We would’ve happily scrambled and made them bigger… with the right advertisers,” the CEO said. “But we made a guess and we were right.”

 

Those “pop up” advertisers standing on the sidelines this month are also a lost opportunity, the CEO said. “We might’ve been able to expand [a Pride-related campaign] into something bigger,” they said.

 

Because of the current economic, political and social volatility, there’s a lot of “trepidation” from advertisers, according to Rivera, who said brands need to commit to the audiences they are trying to reach, instead of being “wishy-washy.”

 

Rivera, who joined Burrell three months ago, is working on a framework for response strategies when sentiments change. “To watch [advertisers] cower and be still [around Pride]… that is disappointing. As a strategist, it’s my job and the job of others in my position to solve for what is best… We need to work on the solution. This idea of just pulling back and then, what happens in 2026?” Rivera said. 

 

Tag Warner, the CEO of the U.K.-based Gay Times, said in a TikTok video that the company lost eight of its 10 advertisers in the last 12 months.

 

Most of Revry’s advertisers are not pulling back this month, “but we are also not seeing many new brands sign on,” Tevis said. In 2024, Revry had 23 total advertisers around Pride, with 19 new brands. This year, the company has 28 advertisers, with 18 new brands. “We have more advertisers in 2025 than in 2024, so budgets have been decreased,” Tevis said.

 

Going into 2025, Revry was forecasting year-over-year growth in June. With that no longer the case, Revry is figuring out how to make this up elsewhere, Tevis said. Fortunately, most of Revry’s advertisers have bought sponsorships that go beyond Pride, he added. “It is not atypical for Revry to see higher ad revenue in months outside of June,” Tevis said.

 

A publishing exec at another LGBTQ+ publisher – who requested to speak anonymously – said they were sold through for the month of Pride. However, last year their publication had big, splashy sponsorships from brands around Pride. This year, their publication has sold its June inventory, but not as much is centered around Pride-related content or events, they said.

 

“Brands are still advertising with us because they see that LGBTQ+ is part of growth marketing,” they said. “But it’s less loud and less proud.”

 

Even if Pride is not what it has been historically this year, execs remained optimistic.

“We lost 15 deals [in March 2020]. Everybody pulled back [because of the COVID-19 pandemic]. But that Q4 lit up,” the anonymous CEO said. “After six-to-nine months of Trump, and the tariff threats [die down], that’s a possibility for that in the back half of the year.”

17095: Building Inclusive Communities—Or Op-Eds—Via AI…?

 

Advertising Age published yet another DEIBA+ LGBTQ+ perspective—that’s two in one week (or one Pride Month)—emphasizing the imperative for inclusion. It’s virtually a carbon copy of the other one—albeit taking an experiential angle—churning out the same suggestions to create authenticity.

 

At this point, it would probably be easy to devise an algorithm so these Op-Eds could be generated via AI.

 

5 ways to build inclusive communities that actually work

 

By Rudy Blanco

 

Marginalized communities have been pushing back against corporate activism for years, and I can understand why. I’m a gay Dominican from the Bronx, but that’s not the only part of me that needs recognition.

 

So, when companies hit me up in June like I’m a seasonal subscription, it’s hard not to feel like a diversity Groupon. And audiences of these pony shows can see the inauthenticity.

 

As someone who plans community events for private agencies, nonprofits and gaming, I know that no one gets “credit” for attending. So, if it doesn’t land, they just close the tab. After three years of testing ways to honor culture, heritage and identity in ways that feel real, here are five ways to build truly inclusive communities:

 

Stop scheduling people’s identities

 

Pride in June. Black History in February. Women’s History in March. Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian Heritage Month in April—you’ve seen the calendar.

In my many roles, these cultural or identity events were a core part of my work. For years, I followed the traditional calendar structure. It made planning easy, but the engagement was surface-level at best.

 

However, most of those events don’t encourage engagement, so we started celebrating identities outside their assigned months. A women’s entrepreneurship event in April. A Black art showcase during Pride. If the only time someone’s story is told is when the calendar says so, that’s not inclusion—it’s programming.

 

This doesn’t mean we should stop celebrating heritage months. But we must celebrate with more care and intention than simply following a schedule. That’s when people will feel the difference.

 

Design with, not for

 

In the past, I designed every event on my own, especially in spaces that were predominantly white, wealthy or outside of the identities being celebrated. The work of my one-man shop came from a good place, but when you’re not part of the identity being celebrated, even your best ideas can miss the landing.

 

So, I started co-creating. I asked for feedback from peers and friends I trusted within the circles being celebrated, while being careful not to tokenize. Whenever we plan something around a specific culture or identity, I invite two people to help shape it: one from inside the community, when possible, and one from outside it.

 

The goal isn’t just representation, but a collaboration. It’s real-time, mutual learning, where people with different lived experiences build something together, so the result feels layered, intentional and real. And remember to reward them. Pay them, shout them out, give them something meaningful. As a former teacher, I’ll tell you: Intrinsic motivation matters, but appreciation matters more.

 

Move from panels to practice

 

I’ve planned the panels, sat through the town halls and booked the “DEI speaker.” I’ve been the DEI speaker. Sometimes panels work—but more often, they land like a corporate memo with better lighting. People don’t change from watching. They change from doing.

 

Instead, try everything but a traditional panel. Try an “un-panel.” Rotate speakers between small groups. Have them play a game—anything that makes the audience part of the moment, not just witnesses to it.

 

I create spaces for participation instead of consumption. One month, we set up a “smell table” tied to cultural food traditions. Another time, we offered teas from different countries, each with a short story or history attached.

 

The more people get to create—even in low-stakes ways—the more they feel like they belong. When you swap panels for practices, you stop performing culture and start experiencing it. That’s when it becomes real.

 

Let people do their own work

 

When I had just come out to myself and the world, I loved being the explainer. I was the helpful token gay kid—the one who answered every question, no matter how wild. I regularly fielded questions like “What’s it like being gay?” “Is saying ‘no homo’ offensive?” “Can I wear a rainbow flag if I’m straight?” Or my personal favorite: “Which one of you is the man in the relationship?” ... Cringe.

 

At the time, I believed answering those questions was activism. And for where I was in my journey, it was. But eventually, I got tired of being the spokesperson. I realized that constantly educating others about my identity and others’ wasn’t sustainable, and it definitely wasn’t fair. Especially in professional spaces, where the people doing the “learning” often had more pay, more power and more protection than those doing the explaining.

 

These days, I’ve set a boundary: Do your own work. People are more capable than we give them credit for. They’ll watch the doc, read the book and follow the creators. What they need isn’t handholding—it’s accountability.

 

If you want your workplace culture to grow, stop asking marginalized folks to carry the emotional weight of your curiosity. Build systems where the responsibility to learn falls on the asker—not the one being asked. Because culture doesn’t deepen when people ask better questions. It deepens when they stop expecting someone else to answer them.

 

Track the right data

 

We don’t always say it out loud, but whoever’s funding your culture work is expecting ROI. Usually, that means engagement numbers compared to dollars spent. But the way we define impact needs to shift. If your only success metric is how many people showed up, you’re measuring the wrong thing.

 

Don’t define what success looks like for a group you’re not part of. Define that with them. Let them tell you what matters. And then, as the culture builder, work within those parameters.

 

In spaces where no one’s required to attend, engagement looks different. I track who lingers, who volunteers, who says, “I didn’t know that,” or who makes new connections outside their usual circle. I’ve run events with barely any attendance, then watched the follow-up Slack thread blow up with the deepest conversations we’d had all quarter. Or seen a self-identity art-making session spark a new cross-team workshop two weeks later. Those are receipts.

 

Track the aftershocks, not just the RSVPs. That’s how you know the culture is real.

17093: PriDEI Perspective.

 

Advertising Age published yet another DEIBA+ perspective—presumably to celebrate Pride Month—authored by a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

 

The content regurgitates all the standard DEIBA+ drivel—sans any references to George Floyd—opining on the popular imperative to prioritize the “I” in DEIBA+.

 

The piece closes with five ways to foster inclusion, replaying common suggestions that the ruling majority continues to ignore.

 

Expect the Op-Ed to be ignored too.

 

Why inclusion is the part of DEI we can’t afford to drop

 

By Alan Brown

 

We’re in a moment of cultural contradiction.

 

Corporate DEI efforts are being scaled back. Budgets are shrinking. The language of inclusion has become politicized. Some companies have quietly dropped their diversity statements, while others are publicly abandoning entire initiatives that, just a few years ago, were treated as non-negotiable.

 

And yet, we’re also in the middle of Pride Month, a time that’s meant to celebrate visibility, equity and belonging for LGBTQ+ people. Rainbow logos without meaningful commitments and public statements without internal culture to back them up are impossible to ignore.

 

What’s missing in most of these conversations—what’s been undervalued, even by well-meaning advocates—is the “I” in DEI.

 

Inclusion isn’t about having the right language in your press release. It’s about how people feel when they walk into your office, sit in your meetings and pitch ideas in your brainstorms. It’s about culture, not just optics.

 

And for me, inclusion has always been personal.

 

I grew up in the Midwest in the 60s and 70s—a time and place where fitting in mattered more than standing out. I wasn’t out as gay back then. Honestly, I didn’t even know what being out looked like.

 

What I did know was that being different, if you were too sensitive, too artistic or quietly queer, made you a target. I was always the last picked for sports teams. That small rejection taught me a bigger lesson: Don’t make yourself too visible.

 

That early sense of exclusion stayed with me well into adulthood. When I started my own agency years later, I was still in the closet at work. I was proud of the work we were doing, but I wasn’t fully showing up. The risk felt too high.

 

Coming out at work in the early 2000s—after I had already built a career and reputation—was terrifying. But it also changed everything. For the first time, I was bringing all of myself to work. And that unlocked a kind of leadership and creativity I hadn’t known was possible.

 

I, along with my partners, have tried to build a different kind of agency—one that reflects the world, not just markets to it. We’ve brought in diverse voices, made room for emerging talent and put people first. DEI wasn’t a strategy deck. It was just how we worked.

 

But today, DEI is under pressure. There’s fatigue, there’s backlash, and in many cases, a retreat. Companies are dropping the language, scaling back commitments and saying less. What gets lost in all of this, ironically, is the part of DEI that matters most: inclusion.

 

Inclusion isn’t about checking boxes. It’s about creating real space for people to show up as themselves and be part of something meaningful. It’s not just about who gets hired, but who gets heard, who gets promoted and who gets the benefit of the doubt. It’s not just about diversity on paper, it’s about culture in practice.

 

This isn’t abstract for me. I know what it’s like to be on the outside looking in. And I also know what it’s like to finally be included—and how powerful that shift can be.

 

This Pride Month, I’ve been reflecting on that journey. The LGBTQ+ movement has always been about fighting for space—for visibility, yes, but also for belonging. From Stonewall to marriage equality to the present day, the push has always been for inclusion, not just to be seen, but to be valued.

 

If you work in advertising, media or any creative field, you already know our job is to connect and to resonate. And we can’t do that unless our teams reflect the full spectrum of the culture we’re trying to reach.

 

So, here’s the question: how do we make inclusion real, especially when it’s no longer the trend?

 

Here are five ways to make inclusion stick:

 

Start by listening

 

Really listen, not just in meetings, but in one-on-one conversations. Create space for people to tell you how they’re experiencing the culture of your organization and be ready to act on what you hear.

 

Diversify decision-making, not just hiring

 

Bringing in talent from different backgrounds is only step one. Inclusion means giving that talent real influence on creative, strategy, hiring and leadership.

 

Watch for subtle signals

 

Whose ideas get credited? Who gets interrupted? Who’s always “not quite ready” for promotion? These are cultural cues that shape people’s sense of belonging.

 

Don’t wait for Pride or Black History Month to show up

 

The work of inclusion happens every day. And if your only moments of visibility are calendar-based, people notice.

 

Be okay with discomfort

 

Inclusion sometimes means hearing things you don’t expect or disagree with. Growth happens when you stay in the room and keep listening.

 

Inclusion isn’t soft. It’s strategic. It makes our work better, our teams stronger and our companies more resilient. And as someone who spent years hiding in plain sight, I can tell you this: Inclusion can change a life.

 

This Pride Month, I’m not just looking back at how far we’ve come. I’m thinking about how much further we can go if we stay committed to building places where everyone gets to belong.