Multinational companies are called to celebrate Pride Month in the US, but not in the Middle East

For LGBT Pride Month, many global companies have traded their logos on Twitter for substitutes featuring the colors of the Pride flag – but now some are being called upon to show their support in the West, but not elsewhere.

Brands like Pfizer, Cisco, General Electric, Mercedes-Benz, Vogue and Bethesda changed their logos on their main Twitter profiles, but made no changes to accounts targeting Middle Eastern markets.

For example, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer changed its logo in markets like America, Mexico and Canada, but kept it the same on its profile in Saudi Arabia.

The trend of companies demonstrating loyalty to members of the LGBT community simply by revising their logos on social media channels gained more attention around 2015. reported Voxbut has been declining in recent years.

Vogue magazine featured a multicolored Pride logo on its main profile, which has nearly 17 million followers, as well as several other Vogue accounts such as Vogue Runway, British Vogue, Vogue India, Vogue Japan, and Vogue Thailand, which has only 24,000 followers.

But on the Vogue Arabia page, which has some 26,000 followers, a simple black and gold logo remained.

Some users took aim at Vogue Arabia by responding to a tweet published on June 2.

“Hey guys, you guys forgot to change your avatar to show Pride. Odd you missed the memo considering all other Vogue accounts all have Pride profile pictures,” one person wrote.

The choice to express solidarity in some markets but not others has been widely used as a basis for challenging the sincerity of such seemingly progressive gestures.

Eli David, an Israeli artificial intelligence developer, was one of the first to point out the hypocrisy through his own Twitter profile.

“Large corporations are running out of ink on their Middle East pages,” he wrote Saturday. “What could be the reason?”

“Profit comes before real pride,” one Twitter user wrote in response.

Others blamed the trend on financial institutions such as BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, which has been accused of using its massive controlling interest in several companies to drive specific social agendas.

“All businesses in the west have absolutely no sympathy or loyalty to transgender ideology,” another user wrote. “They fly with proud colors ONLY because Blackrock owns their soul.”

‘Always optics…never about conviction,’ said another. “If only they had integrity…but at least their indulgence (as well as the ESG issue they bow to) we know where the values ​​of these companies lie.”

BlackRock is one company that changed its Twitter logo on multiple company profiles this year, although it does not have a Twitter profile for Middle Eastern markets.

German automakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz were two of the most notable companies to make the political statement on one Twitter profile and not the other.

The Mercedes logo was exchanged for an equivalent with the bright colors of the Pride flag.

American multinational communications companies Cisco also allegedly addressed Pride Month on one profile, but not on the other that focuses on the Middle East market.

Notably, while the main profile image of the Cisco Middle East account was not changed, it included a colorful banner image featuring the flagship account, which read, “Powering an Inclusive Future for All”

Video game developer Bethesda tweeted on June 2 to recognize Pride Month, but its Middle East account didn’t address the occasion at all and didn’t change its logo.

One company that has been singled out in the past is Lenovo, the Chinese-American computer company. But this year, the company apparently chose not to celebrate Pride Month at all, even keeping the regular red logo.

The trend for companies to change their logos to more colorful variants during Pride Month seems to have lost momentum in recent years.

An article published by CNN noted how a changing climate for businesses in America is forcing them to think twice about decisions that once seemed obvious.

“Companies have long embraced Pride Month in June as a straightforward way to market to members of the LGBTQ+ community while telegraphing progressive values,” wrote CNN’s Danielle Wiener-Bronner.

“This year won’t be nearly as easy,” she added.

In recent months, Bud Light and Target have been among a handful of companies at the center of controversies over LGBT-friendly marketing campaigns that have come under attack from conservatives.

Those marketing strategies have been costly, knocking billions off their market caps.

As a result, companies are becoming “much more skittish about taking these positions and making strong statements,” Daniel Korschun, an associate professor of marketing at Drexel University, told CNN.

“The pendulum is swinging back a bit… to a more conservative approach, where they’ll be less vocal.”