2017 I went to Boston Pride, that was the first time I went to a Pride in the United States.
And I identified two major differences between Pride in Taiwan and Pride in the United States.
First off, I noticed way more seniors were participating in Boston Pride compared to
Taipei Pride, which is a beautiful thing because that means the LGBTQ community is
less stigmatized in the US even among the older population. The second thing I noticed is that,
I saw way more big companies used pride as an opportunity to promote their brand.
But why, and is that good or bad? Let's find out with People Also Ask.
Hi, I am Shao Chieh Lo, Welcome to what people also ask, where I search something seemingly obvious and
share with you some of its PAA, aka People Also Ask, which is a feature telling you what other
people are searching on Google that related to your query. Today's keyword is Pink Money and
Pinkwashing. So let's talk about today's first PAA How much money does LGBTQ community generate?
which extracted its answer from a Wikipedia entry titled "Pink money" and I believe this entry can
explain a lot about what I saw in Boston Pride. According to this entry, Pink money describes
the purchasing power of the LGBTQ community, In 2019, LGBTQ adults globally held a combined buying
power of approximately $3.7 trillion. It's been considered more often than not a market exclusive
for the US, UK, and some places in Europe, but its extension covers a large amount of Latin America
and part of Asia. That, I believe, is why I noticed a disparity in the pride participation
level of large corporations in Western and Asian countries. While we know that many Asian countries
are catching up on LGBTQ rights, many Asian businesses may still view participating in pride
as too risky. But why it is called pink money? It has something to do with history. And it appears
that the British use this term first. According to an article titled "Pursuing the pink pound:
How big is the UK’s LGBTQ market?" published by crunch.co.uk which appears to be a website of an
accounting software company. According to this article, the phrase ‘pink pound’ first
appeared in the Guardian newspaper in 1984. During World War 2 gay people were made to
wear a pink triangle to make their sexuality obvious. But after the war ended, the color pink
was reclaimed as a symbol of the LGBTQ rights movement. 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 LGBTQ 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 they 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 don't 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. Well I understand the Starbuck Head office in the US might not
directly involve in this pinkwashing scheme, but I won't say they totally don't have responsibility
since when you expand your brand overseas, it's your responsibility
to make sure your brand value proposition is consistent. At the end of the video,
I want to mention that the term pinkwashing is also used to describes a company's campaigning for
breast cancer awareness while they contribute to the production of chemical carcinogens.
I mean, seriously for companies who don't actually support LGBT rights and breast cancer awareness
just don't make money you don't deserve okay.
So, if you are a company that doesn't actually support LGBTQ rights or
breast cancer awareness, here's what you can do: Shut your fxxx up! Because Pinkwashing
usually angers the LGBTQ community or people who have loved ones having breast cancer more
than if they never said anything in the first place. It’s important for retailers and brands to
only get involved in politics if it’s something they truly believe in. The public don’t take
kindly to businesses who use politics solely for their brand’s growth. Okay, let's recap.
Today we learned that Pink money is referring to the purchasing power of the LGBTQ community,
a little bit of history about pink money, the concept of pinkwashing, Startbucks Taiwan's lamest
pinkwashing move in 2016, and the best practice for companies that don't actually support LGBTQ rights
or breast cancer awareness, which is to shut up. If you made it to the end of the video,
chances are that you enjoy learning what people also ask on Google. But let's face it,
reading PAA yourself will be a pain. So here's the deal, I will do the reading for you and upload a
video compiling some fun PAAs once a week, all you have to do is to hit the subscribe button and
the bell icon so you won't miss any PAA report that I compile. So just do it right now.