Why brands got bored of minority creators

Black History Month is “racist”, according to George Woodward, a white Reform councillor from St Helens. 

Which means that, in a bizarre move mirroring our colonial past, white people have now stolen the word 'racism'. Next thing you know, that word will be on display at your local British history museum, labelled as the proud property of the King.

That this flag-wearing fucknut feels emboldened to make such grim cultural moves on behalf of his constituency is so typical of 2026.

As justification, Woodward argued that it was "not appropriate for celebrations to centre on one skin tone”. And, in July of this year, he also announced that there would be no Pride celebrations. His council have withdrawn all funding from Refugee Week, which celebrates the "contributions, creativity, and resilience of refugees”, and when protestors congregated at St Helen’s Hall to challenge his decision he met them outside, draped in a Union Jack. I wonder if Mr Woodward will cancel Christmas when he finds out many believe Jesus was Palestinian? 

Above: Would George Woodward also want to cancel Christmas if he finds out many believe Jesus was Palestinian?

That this flag-wearing fucknut feels emboldened to make such grim cultural moves on behalf of his constituency is so typical of 2026. A year in which old-aged pensioners were arrested for protesting against genocide, trans people are having their photo taken by TERFs in toilets, and the anti-woke brigade loudly cheered the British media’s humiliation of late Professor Jason Arday, who has - for the fourth time - just been cleared of plagiarism in a public investigation.  

It’s like the ad industry all chipped in to build a giant floppy plastic hand, and then used it to issue a collective slap round the face of the Black community. 

Did you even notice that October was Black History Month in the UK? If you get all your cultural updates from brands, then probably not, because they were, yet again, pretty quiet this year. In fact, Google “how brands are celebrating Black History Month” and you’ll find a load of articles from 2020, and the news story about George Woodward. It’s a disappearance akin to that meme of Homer Simpson, retreating backwards into a garden hedge.  

According to the journalist Hena Bryan: “Each October feels quieter than the last, and many of my peers are experiencing the same. Since around 2022, it’s like the collective excitement over BHM has faded, and brands have returned to business as usual. At this point, I’ve come to expect it. I’m no longer shocked; instead, I’m resigned to this new normal where Black voices are amplified only when convenient.” It’s like the ad industry all chipped in to build a giant floppy plastic hand, and then used it to issue a collective slap round the face of the Black community. 

Above: Trans activist Charlie Craggs.

In the US, Black History Month is in February. Did you notice? If you get all your cultural updates from brands, then probably not, because according to an audit conducted by Hootsuite based on the official X accounts of around 100 global brands, only two brands - Spotify and Ralph Lauren - referenced Black History Month in a post during that month. By comparison, in February 2021 (the first February following the murder of George Floyd) the exact same group of brands either mentioned Black History Month or used the hashtag #BlackHistoryMonth 122 times on Twitter.  

This rapidly diminishing endorsement isn’t restricted to Black history, though. According to the UK Pride Organisers Network, three-quarters of organisers saw corporate partnerships for the Pride festival fall, and a quarter lost more than half their sponsorship income. In addition, a Guardian analysis from last year found that the UK’s ten biggest companies posted 92% fewer Pride mentions than in 2023. 

In the US, Black History Month is in February. Did you notice? If you get all your cultural updates from brands, then probably not.

Charlie Craggs is a trans activist, bestselling author and actress named 'The Voice of a Community' by Vogue, with handfuls of awards to her name. She’s also under such financial stress she’s selling her house, because work from brands has completely dried up. I interviewed her for my Unlikeable Woman Podcast (out now!) In which she reveals how minority communities feel both abandoned and neglected by marketers who were desperate to borrow their reach and clout a few years ago. 

“There’s a lot of less money in the influencer space right now,” she says. “And the people who are getting hurt the most are the D&I kind of hires, people who are queer, Black, disabled, women. Basically, anyone who’s not a Love Island girly flogging Shein. “Brands don’t want to touch us. Look at Pride season! There’s hardly any Pride activations anymore, but five years ago, we would make enough during Pride season to last us a whole year. I’ve let my whole income be reliant on a boardroom of old white guys who are choosing which queers are palatable, which Black people are palatable. We’re literally begging for crumbs.” 

Above: Natasha Walter's Feminism for a World on Fire, discusses "how industry co-opted the flourishing feminist movement in the mid 2010s".

Fact is, if you remove a newspaper from the media plan, that newspaper will likely survive, but an actual person? That’s tricky. And if you are lucky enough to find your way onto the plan as a 'creator buy' your message has to be sanitised beyond belief. Says Charlie Craggs: “All you’re allowed to say during Pride season is love is love. God forbid these brands want to support Pride, but if you actually speak about what needs to be spoken about during Pride, like, maybe we should stop killing Black trans women in America, then you’re being too political.”

So, what on earth happened, when a few years ago Cannes was filled with so many promises of diversity, equality and inclusion on every panel up and down La Croisette? And what about the fact that, this year, the unofficial theme of Cannes (according to Instagram) was 'the creator economy'? You don’t need a PHD in solving riddles to work it out. The verdict seems to be that creators = cool, but minority creators and activist creators = not cool. Because equality stopped being cool. And the ‘diversity’ trend ended. That the American president despises any mention of DEI is just a coincidence, I’m sure.  

Having worked in advertising for many years, I can confirm that the people deciding what’s cool are… not cool. They’re so uncool that they obsess over what’s cool in stuffy boardroom meetings.

Who decides what’s cool? Having worked in advertising for many years, I can confirm that the people deciding what’s cool are… not cool. They’re so uncool that they obsess over what’s cool in stuffy boardroom meetings, drinking crap coffee and eating sweaty Pret croissants. They’re not cool, because they’re focused on commercials. They’re just moths, with dollar signs in their eyes. These people don’t want creativity, they want trends!  

Every client deck has a trends section: those few slides when a planner gets to excitedly declare that CHAOS IS A TREND! Or that PINK IS A TREND! Or that AUTHENTIC ASIAN-CORE MATCHA EXPERIENCES ARE A TREND! And, somehow, at this stage of the evolution of humanity, the concept of humanity became a trend. Even worse, it’s a trend that’s already dated. In Feminism for a World on Fire, Natasha Walter talks about how industry co-opted the flourishing feminist movement in the mid 2010s. She argues that “the shameless use of feminist ideas of empowerment and activism to sell products” is just a part of marketing these days. 

Advertising, she says, has “eaten feminism, grown fat on it, and now regurgitates it shamelessly.” I’ll never forget the day I saw someone announce that “feminism is a trend” in a client meeting (a beer brand) alongside an idea to erect statues of famous women around London, guerrilla style. A suffragette here, and doctor there. After the proposal got rejected I saw this idea seven more times, in different proposals to seven other clients.