Facebook Red Equal Sign Adopted By Brands, Businesses Too

The Facebook “red equal sign” meme has not only taken over user profiles in the past 24 hours — the site’s brands and companies too have been altering the simple image to convey a support for marriage equality and transmit their position to fans, followers, and customers.

The Facebook red equal sign meme began to really tip on Tuesday as users across the site altered their avatars to simultaneously show support for marriage equality as the issue traveled up to the Supreme Court.

The Human Rights Campaign started the Facebook red equal sign trend, and users climbed aboard quickly — but brands also took the opportunity to display solidarity with branded and related posts in favor of marriage equality.

Alcohol brands seemed to be strongly on board with the Facebook red equal sign trend, with Smirnoff, Bud Light, and Absolut all posting images and messages of support.

Charlie Joughin, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, said of the brands adopting the Facebook red equal sign:

“It’s neat to see that this is not just individuals are taking part in voicing their support. Major American brands are getting on board and throwing their support around [LGBT] and marriage equality, too.”

It isn’t just the Facebook red equal sign meme that has brought brands out in visual favor of gay rights — Oreo released a pic of a rainbow-cream Oreo last summer that caused some controversy as a show of solidarity.

And last week, the CEO of Starbucks declined to consider walking back the chain’s stance on gay rights when a shareholder questioned profitability.

At the time, Howard Schultz said: “Not every decision is an economic decision. Despite the fact that you recite statistics that are narrow in time, we did provide a 38 percent shareholder return over the last year.”

Did you spot any brands adopting the Facebook red equal sign this week?