Supporting Pride Month meaningfully

We’ve changed the Platypus Digital social logos to rainbow colours for Pride Month for the first time ever. 

Many organisations show their support publicly by changing their logos and branding during Pride Month, which is great when it reflects genuine commitment to the LGBTQIA+ community. 

The risk of being performative

But if the logo change isn’t accompanied by real internal changes or support, it can feel performative.

I didn’t feel we were doing enough internally to justify changing our logos.

I was worried that if we did, people might assume we were making more substantive progress than we actually were. 

It’s easy to slap a rainbow on your brand for a month, but much harder to do the real work of creating an inclusive workplace culture. I didn’t want us to be an agency company that wears a rainbow badge proudly but doesn’t do the work.

Getting expert guidance from Outvertising

Things changed when we did some training with Outvertising. They are an organisation working to make UK marketing and advertising completely LGBTQIA+ inclusive.

They gave us solid, actionable recommendations and policy changes to make Platypus more inclusive. 

These included making it super clear that all our benefits are fully available to everyone regardless of gender or orientation, implementing compassionate leave policies that cover chosen family as well as legal/blood family, and supporting the creation of an employee resource group for LGBTQIA+ staff and allies.

Talking with our team

We reviewed our progress so far and identified areas for further improvement in a team session.

Off the back of that, I now feel confident enough to change our logos for Pride Month. 

We’ve made some good strides internally so now it doesn’t feel like a superficial gesture.

Changing logos and showing visible support can be a powerful symbol of solidarity when backed by authentic action. 

More work to do

We still have a lot more work to do to build a truly equitable and inclusive workplace. We haven’t implemented everything from Outvertising yet, and we’ll probably never feel ‘done’ – that’s a good thing.

The real work of inclusion happens day in and day out, in the policies we write, the benefits we offer, the culture we create, and the way we show up for our LGBTQIA+ employees and community. 

We’re committed to doing that work.