The LGBTQ+ community in Mexico is a highly profitable market with more than 8 million people and an annual consumption of $80 billion. It is clear that all brands want a piece of the pie. That’s why they do not hesitate to launch new and colorful versions of their products every year during Pride month.

The problem is that many of them do not really support the community and just want to increase sales and profit from a highly profitable community. This false support is known as Rainbow Washing, a practice that more and more brands are resorting to, mainly because it is almost impossible to spot at the point of sale.

*Only 36% of brands support the LGBTQ+ population. Forbes México

In the context of the World Economic Forum, Capaxia, a consulting firm working for diversity and inclusion in Mexico, launched an application to scan any product with the colors of the LGBTQ+ flag to get information about that brand’s actual commitment to the LGBTQ+ community.

The app aims to discourage Rainbow Washing and put pressure on brands that benefit from the LGBTQ+ movement to make an increasingly real and consistent contribution to the community.

To help business leaders understand the need for diversity and inclusion consulting, we highlighted one of the most common mistakes companies and their brands make: Rainbow Washing.

January, 2021: Conducting the Rainbow Washing Research Mexico 2021 study (collecting data from more than 15 sources with verified information on more than 5 thousand brands present in Mexico).

May, 2022: Completion of the study and presentation of the report.

August, 2022: Development of the app; uploading of the information, implementation of the technology that allows the scanning of the brands, and development of the manual search engine.

September, 2022: Beta version of the application with 1,000 brands.

October, 2022: Version 1.0 of the app.

November, 2022: PR launch with leaders of the LGBTQ+ community in Mexico.

November, 2022: First million downloads on the App Store.

January, 2023: Launch of the application at the World Economic Forum.

February, 2023: Launch in the mass media.

April, 2023: Version 2.0 of the app (in development).

Today, the application has information on more than 10,000 brands in Mexico.

The platform provides real-time data on more than 3,000 companies in Mexico.

Just a few months after launching version 1.0, it has already been downloaded by more than 50,000 of the country’s LGBT community. (Today more than 2 million Mexicans are making more conscious choices at the point of sale).

More than 30 major brands in Mexico have enlisted Capaxia’s help to implement truly inclusive and diverse business models.

We make the LGBTQ+ community and its needs visible so that the community at large understands the importance of supporting the community with strong actions.

We create the largest collection of information about brands and their contribution to the LGBTQ+ community in Mexico.

We propose a globally scalable tool that is fully open-source so that any country can replicate it.

The app has received the support of millions of people from the LGBT community and dozens of foundations that work with them. Dozens of brands have sought out Capaxia for advice on diversity and inclusion, and important media outlets have viralized the app. But the most important thing is that millions of Mexicans stopped choosing colors, to choose real data.