Who’s coming to the party? Mardi Gras’ corporate comedown
Mardi Gras’ ethical charter is an important shift in the event’s approach to sponsorship, but the new guidelines have seen an exodus of big brands — and while tighter sponsor guidelines were a must, funding is now stretched. Jonti Groth, senior creative at Connecting Plots Group, explains.
Mardi Gras has a funding issue
Corporate sponsors are a drug, and inevitably, the drugs don’t hit like they used to.
Though it started as a protest in 1978, the Mardi Gras I know and love has been one littered with big brands painting their logos rainbow and tipping cash into an organisation that brings the LGBTQIA+ community immense joy.
However, we are currently in the middle of a corporate comedown.
American Express has withdrawn from the festival, while tech giants Google and Meta are stepping down in the midst of closer scrutiny by the Mardi Gras board and their updated Ethical Charter.
As organisers have stated, partnerships are “not always monetary in value and are underpinned by the ethical charter process – one that neither Google nor Meta currently meets the requirements of.” In light of ongoing rollbacks of DEI programs and inclusive policies in the US, it’s understood that these shifts are likely the reason the two companies no longer meet the requirements.
Mardi Gras’ Ethical Charter marks an important shift in the event’s approach to sponsorship. Just as Greenpeace probably wouldn’t sign on BHP as a naming sponsor, Mardi Gras is now more rigorously assessing potential partners across four key pillars, scoring them on a scale of 1 to 5 in each category.
Let’s take a look:
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Brands are expected to be industry leaders, championing DEI as an integral part of their organisation.
- Collaboration: Mardi Gras wants long-term relationships. They’ll prioritise partners with a history of supporting LGBTQIA+ organisations, who are committed to multi-year engagement and show support for community-funded programs.
- Authenticity and Integrity: This pillar looks at a brand’s genuine investment in the community. Assessing if their motivations go beyond simple marketing.
- Human Rights and Sustainability: Does the brand share Mardi Gras’ vision for a peaceful world? This looks at their commitment to environmental sustainability, modern slavery compliance, and any connections to war, genocide, or violence.
Despite the positive change, there’s still a problem: funding. With major sponsors in the past helping to underwrite programming, production and infrastructure, their exodus has already opened up a funding gap, one wide enough to swallow the official 2026 after-party whole.
Looking back, the bar for allyship has had its low points.
Take Ampol’s 2023 ‘Glampol’, where a fuel giant rebranded two petrol stations for a week (spare me). Or look at Gilead, a major sponsor from 2015 to 2019 that was eventually ousted for price gouging life-saving HIV medication (how’s that for duality?).
This comedown shouldn’t last forever.
Glampol didn’t hit the mark for many
Just as Mardi Gras is evaluating who to invite to the party, my hope is that the brands that do tick their boxes are subjected to another level of scrutiny: creative scrutiny. If brands (especially smaller ones) are going to spend the cash, they should be looking beyond the ROI of reach and onto the end goal: relevance.
With that in mind, here are a few (mostly unserious) ideas for how brands could ‘lean in’ over Mardi Gras, without simply hitching a ride on the rainbow.
- Australian Dairy Farmers: The official milk crate suppliers to the Mardi Gras parade spectators.
- Optus: Plans with unlimited data for Grindr, Sniffies, Feeld and Scruff – It really does start with Yes
- ABC: The after party is back with B1 and B2 doing a high-concept DJ set.
- BCF: Limited run of LGBCF-ing fishing shirts.
- Twisties: A pride edition of ‘Straighties’.
- Horseland: A custom line of human leather wear, giddy up!
- Johnson & Johnson: Band-Aid pit stop mid-parade for Drag Queen blisters and Studs debuting their Doc Martens.
- KFC: Daddy Colonel’s post-Mardi Gras recovery box
- NRMA: The official insurer for the Dykes on Bikes.
- Sydney Water: Naming sponsor of the communal urinal during Fair Day.
- Fads Fun Sticks: Announce a limited run reverting back to their original 1978 name, ‘Fags’.
If you’re lucky enough to have a hand in how a brand shows up next Mardi Gras, take this from me – a rainbow logo and a custom slogan touting inclusivity is the price of entry.
It’s time to look a little deeper at your brand truths, how they are already showing up in the space — the less expected the better: have fun with it — sincerity is only good in small doses. Hit that, and you’ll earn the audience instead of force-feeding them.
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