Like most major brands, Budweiser U.K. has launched a Pride-themed marketing campaign to capitalize on LGBT Pride month.
But unlike most brands, Budweiser didn’t simply decorate its marketing materials with rainbows or make a wishy-washy political statement about love. No. It launched an entire line of very specifically decorated cans designed to celebrate nine different LGBT lifestyles, some of which are pretty obscure.
The campaign is called “Fly the Flag,” and it gets very detailed.
Excited to reveal we are now proud sponsors of Pride in London! We are working closely with them and our charity partners to celebrate the diversity within the LGBT+ community and Fly the Flag for everyone at the #PrideJubilee
A taste of what’s to come… pic.twitter.com/g1FYlXqJJk
— Budweiser UK (@BudweiserUK) May 31, 2019
A couple of the flags are immediately recognizable. The first flag, in the upper left-hand corner, is the standard LGBT flag, updated with brown and black to incorporate “intersectionality” into the movement. The center can has the “Transgender Pride” flag, a recent — but now ubiquitous — addition to the Pride Flag family.
The others, though, are mostly new to those outside of the wider LGBTQ community.
The magenta, pink, and purple can in the middle, Budweiser says, “is for same-gender attraction, blue is for attraction to genders other than your own, and lavender (a mix of the two) represents attraction to your own and other genders, though some interpret it differently.”
The black, gray, white, and purple can “is for asexuals who don’t feel sexual attraction to anyone. Grey is for grey-asexuals, who sometimes feel sexual attraction, and demi-sexuals who only feel it if they know someone well. White nods to non-asexual allies, and purple represents the whole community.”
Other cans stand for “genderfluid pride,” “non-binary pride,” specifically “lesbian pride” (the one that features primarily shades of pink and flesh tone), “intersex pride” (the yellow can with the purple circle), and “pansexual pride” (the pink, yellow, and electric blue can).
That is a whole lot of intersectionality — an exhausting amount of intersectionality, actually. The Resurgent may have put it best when authors there said that nothing can be left to chance in this modern, progressive world, and no figure can be left out during celebrations of identity.
“The main thing we need to remember from all of this is that even your beer is political these days. There are tons of products these days that you can’t buy without making some sort of political statement – whether you want to or not. Remember, you will be made to care, or at least your money will,” they wrote.
Budweiser U.K. is an official sponsor of London’s Pride parade and, according to a company press release, hopes that their products will be front and center during the celebration. Unfortunately for Budweiser, there’s a good chance that they’ve forgotten someone.