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November 20 is International Transgender Day of Remembrance. And that is also a point of attention for marketers.

In my research, I developed the customer journey: Representation -> visibility -> normalization -> tolerance -> acceptance -> respect. In the US, the discussion is mainly about the use of toilets, and we have recently seen a wave of discriminatory, hateful bills emerge. And a few hundred transgender people are murdered every year. In the Netherlands, we may have taken a few steps further, but we are still far from reaching Respect. Marketing, communication and advertising can play an important role here.

Backlog

Dutch research shows that transgender people have a vulnerable (employment) position. Compared to the general population, they more often have a low income (53 percent compared to 30 percent), and less often a position as an employee or self-employed person (41 percent compared to 62 percent). They are also more likely to receive disability benefits (12 percent versus 4 percent), social assistance (11 percent versus 4 percent) or other benefits (10 percent versus 2 percent). Possible explanations for their poorer position on the labor market include prejudices about them among employers and colleagues, and increased mental and physical health problems that make it more difficult to find or keep a job.

As marketers, we can do something about the first, the prejudices. A number of leading brands have already made progress in this area, such as Starbucks.

Starbucks shows respect

Starbucks has an excellent reputation in the field of Marketing the Rainbow. This was even reflected in the sharp response that CEO Howard Schultz gave to an anti-woke shareholder during the AGM in 2013.

They won the Channel 4 Diversity Award in 2019 with the British commercial Every name’s a story. It is a touching story about a boy who hears his own chosen name at Starbucks for the first time.

That campaign video on my YouTube channel is one of the most viewed videos there with over 100,000 views (no. 12). By the way, many comments are about the fact that Starbucks so often misspells your name – which I think is still a marketing gimmick, because people keep talking about it. There is a fair amount of filthiness in it, especially along the lines of “Let them stick to their product instead of shoving a political agenda down my throat”, but especially “They’ve lost me as a customer”. Sure, you go to ‘a competitor’. The campaign went viral because of both the votes for and against.

There are a number of spin-offs within this campaign in which individual young people tell their story: Cairo, Otto, Eliza and Nicole.

Starbucks supported the Mermaids foundation with this, which helps transgender young people and their families. The campaign won them £1 million in advertising time, and Starbucks also promised to raise £100,000 by selling cookies in the shape of a mermaid tail.

A special Tonks cup was made for Harry Potter fans to celebrate Transgender Pride. That was also by fans, but it could just as easily have been released by the Bucks themselves.

India

The #ItStartsWithYourName campaign they did in India last year was also beautiful. In a warm setting, we see how a father accepts his trans child.

NB: perhaps the most striking thing was that this took place during the huge Bud Light Drama in the US, which cost AB InBev £4 billion in stock market value.

The situation in India is different from other countries, because trans people have a different status there. In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that there is a third gender, and this was enshrined in law in 2019. Paradoxically, however, the country is still quite conservative.

Previously, transgender people in India also played a role in Unilever advertisements, for example in the beautiful Taste of belonging and the 6 Pack Band of their tea brand Brooke Bonds.

And P&G also contributed to the Indian transgender bag for their brand Vicks with the sensational #TouchOfCare.

All of this contributes greatly to the journey from Representation to Respect.

Alfred Verhoeven is a marketer and is in the final phase of his PhD research Marketing the Rainbow.
He previously wrote for ILOVEGAY about  Pride Month, The Oldest Rainbows, Royal Dutch Shell part 1 and part 2, Marriott part 1 and part 2, Super Bowl Ads: What Would Jesus Do?, Zalando’s journey from activism to size-inclusive shoes, Zalando goes from controversies to hidden stories, Get woke, go broke, Spain has 6.8 billion reasons to love rainbow tourists, How Spain markets itself as rainbow destination, Everyone’s gay in Amsterdam, I Amsterdam, Gay Capital, The Ideal Traveler, Diversity & Language, Playing with Pronouns, Abercrombie & Fitch : The Rise & The Fall, Play the gayme: about SIMS and Candy Crush, Diversity in Toys, LEGO does the rainbow, Barbiemania, Bud Light and the 4 bln dollar woman, Dutch retailer HEMA loves everybody, Pronouns, About those rainbows, Alphabet soup, M&M’s and the lesbian invasion, Magnum and the lesbian wedding, Marketing the Rainbow: the process and all that came before it, Sport and (un)sportmanship,  Why you need a supplier diversity program, BeNeLux LGBTIQ+ Business Chamber (BGLBC), From B2C and B2B to B2G and G2G (oh, and G2C), The Men from Atlantis, The other kind of cruising, Booking.com, Home Deco, Haters and trolls: the ‘letter to the editor’ of the 21st century, 5 Bizarre LGBT Videos, TRANSparency, Transgender persons as a target group, Matchmaking, 5 videos that went viral, From Representation To Respect, Cultural sensitivities and social involvement in marketing, 4 reasons to practice diversity and The Rules of Market Segmentation.