Nature is innately queer, making every green space a safe space for biodiversity (plants and humans alike). In a cultural moment when brands tend to rainbow-wash, Miracle-Gro proudly came out with a collection of queer content that spanned sexualities, identities, and the intersection of queer history & ecology. Miracle-Gro signaled to the LGBTQIA+ community that in the garden, it’s all natural.
With the objective to make LGBTQIA+ gardeners feel seen, we set sentiment as our KPI.
While GLAAD reported that in 2023 LGBTQIA+ support was at an all-time high, the number of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation had more than tripled from the year before.
In a world where it feels like diversity is up for debate, there is one place where it thrives: the garden.
Miracle-Gro, by its nature, wants everyone and everything to bloom. Thus, a team united by queer identities and allyship crafted seven pieces of social content that positioned the garden as a place for all to unmask and be themselves.
Plants are fluid in identity, sexual orientation and gender. To educate followers on the parallels to the human species, we collaborated with a queer ecologist. The intersection of florals and queerness has been documented through literature. Oscar Wilde was one author who used the green carnation to signal affiliation with the queer community through his characters, so we styled the flower in the modern era. Knowing that being out and proud is dangerous at times, we highlighted drag culture’s queer BIPOC roots through the process of “yassification.” We transformed a quirky harvest of vegetables into an ode to this scrutinized art form.
As nature evolves and blossoms, so does the LGBTQIA+ community. We demonstrated our understanding of history, but also aligned with the contemporary queer lexicon. Some houseplants absorb water best from the top, while others, the bottom. So, we turned to our feeds to discuss how to tell the difference, with plants actually being both, or, 'vers'. The term “chosen family” is used to describe a nonfamilial group of loved ones, so we selected our own from the garden and even included familiar tropes. To show our outward support for LGBTQIA+ creators, we reposted cheeky societal commentary from a lesbian who honestly speaks for us all. Finally, in an exclamation of pride, we collaged mood boards that married a range of pride flags with elements of the garden.
All of these efforts radiated our support of the LGBTQIA+ community, but in case negative sentiment infiltrated our safe space, we built a community management response matrix to weed out hate.
Resulting in 92.3% positive comment sentiment (50% higher than other brands’ Pride content), Miracle-Gro was accepted into the LGBTQIA+ community with open arms and in return, welcomed 5,000 new followers into our chosen family.
