This article also mentioned a concept called "Pinkwashing".
So let's talk about the next two PAAs: Who coined the term pinkwashing?
and Is pinkwashing bad?
These two questions were answered by a Wikipedia entry titled "Pinkwashing (LGBT)" ,and the
aforementioned article titled "Pursuing the pink pound: How big is the UK’s LGBT market?"
and another article titled "Pink Dollar Marketing and Queer Representation in Advertising" published
by mediasmarts.ca which is a Canadian not-for-profit organization for digital and media literacy.
According to these three articles,The term Pinkwashing was coined by Sarah Schulman in
her article for The New York Times titled "Israel and Pinkwashing" published in 2011.
and Pinkwashing is when a company makes a concerted public relations effort to appear
gay-friendly in order to gain access to the pink money, but they don't actually genuinely
support LGBTQ rights and some will even willingly act against queer interests
when it’s convenient for them.
For example, When R.J.
Reynolds Tobacco Company sought to break into the queer market in San Francisco, their proposed
gay-themed marketing campaign was tellingly referred to in-house as “Project SCUM”.
Well, what can you expect from a Tobacco Company, they literally kill people every day.
But there are tones of companies that have done this, that even include companies generally
considered LGBTQ-friendly like Starbucks, can you believe that?
So the next none-PAA is, Did Starbucks commit pinkwashing?
This Non-PAA is answered by PinkDot Taiwan's official Facebook page, which is an annual
LGBTQ event that started in 2009 started in Singapore and extended to other Asian countries.
and Student Union For marriage Equality’s official Facebook page which is an LGBTQ right
student organization in Taiwan.
So here's what happened: In early June 2016.
Starbucks Taiwan launched the six-color rainbow cup, but the promotional copy did not express
any explicit support for LGBTQ rights, only includes implicit words like
"six-color rainbow spectrum" in their copy.
At this point, it's kind of still just in the grey area of pinkwashing, and it appears
most of the people in Taiwan were giving it a pass.
A lot of people thought that for a company operated in an Asian country implicit support
was already progressing.
The PinkDot Taiwan's official Facebook even encourage People to "encourage Starbuck Taiwan
to do more, instead of accusing their semi-pinkwashing behavior" But then on June 16, 2016,
Student Union For marriage Equality’s official page release a post, said that they called Starbucks'
customer service asking if their six-color rainbow cup is in support of LGBTQ right,
and here's what the customer service agent reply "Starbucks respects multiculturalism,
but the rainbow design is based on the concept of colorful summer" and denied any connection
between their six-color rainbow cup and LGBTQ issues.
To rule out the possibility that the reply was not due to an ill-trained customer service
agent, PinkDot Taiwan's editor called Starbuck's customer service again, and this time they
posted the whole conversation with the agent as followed: Starbuck first said: “Starbucks
always supports and respects multiculturalism, but the rainbow design of this cup is based
on the concept of colorful summer, not related to LGBTQ."
The Pinkdot keeps on asking "Then why did you choose the "six-color rainbow" instead
of the more common "seven-color rainbow"?"
Then the customer service agent fell into silence.
Since the customer service did not reply, Pinkdot went on and said "Six-color rainbow"
is a cultural symbol often used to support LGBTQ.
We have not seen it used on other occasions, and you were completely unaware of it before
you used it?"
The customer service fell into silence again.
Since the customer service did not reply, Pinkdot went on "So you used a six-color rainbow,
but you said that you do not support LGBTQ?"
The customer service repeated the canned reply “Starbucks always supports and respects
multiculturalism, but the rainbow design of this cup is based on the concept of colorful
summer, not related to LGBTQ."
Pinkdot replied "So Taiwan Starbucks does not support LGBTQ?
Even the Starbucks head office of the United States has publicly expressed its support,
that does not including you?"
The customer service fell into silence again.
Since the customer service did not reply, Pinkdot went on " Don't you think it's exploiting
LGBTQ community to use a symbol that supports LGBTQ to make money
, but refuse to speak up for us?
The customer service then replied: I will pass your opinion to the supervisor, or if
you want to call the head office directly the number is 02-87867799.
In the end, the pinkdot editor asked the customer service to ask their supervisor to call back
as soon as possible, but the call to the head office did not receive any reply.
And when they check Starbucks’ post again, they have even rewritten the original copy
that implied their support of LGBTQ to make sure they did not even implicitly support
LGBTQ rights.
Wow, so it is like the "first-degree pinkwashing" from Starbucks!
A company always proclaims to be LGBTQ-friendly.
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