WHAT'S NEXT

Ask Pandora: Stop Heteronormative Advertising
  1. Signatures
    48 out of 100
    Petitioning
    1. Pandora Customer Service (+ 1 other)
      Petitioning
      close
      • Pandora Customer Service
      • Pandora Media Relations
  2. Created By
    Jordan Rubenstein
    New York, NY
About this Petition Petition Letter Petition Updates
How We Won

Feb 14, 2011

After several dozen Change.org members wrote Pandora, taking the company to task for a series of heteronormative advertisements that failed to be inclusive of LGBT users, the company wrote an email response to share with Change.org members: "Our marketing communications will be gender neutral moving forward. The message has been heard loud and clear from our end and we deeply regret the error and any offense we may have caused."

 

Pandora, a popular online radio service , sent out an email advertisement for Valentine’s Day that was geared towards those in heterosexual relationships. Since users are required to specify their gender when they register for Pandora, it has a database of all its users’ gender. It does not, however, have any information on users’ sexual orientation. But that didn’t stop them from making assumptions.
 
Pandora sent out an email intended for its female users. The subject, “A Musical Gift He’ll Adore - Pandora One,” assumes that all its female users are straight. This advertising is rooted in heteronormativity and ostracizes LGBT users. The subject line’s language could have easily been adjusted so it was gender-neutral and applied to everyone.
 
Pandora accidentally sent some of their emails to the “wrong” gender. In an email entitled “We made a mistake in our Valentine’s Day email,” an email from Pandora explained, "We were experimenting with some gender-speicific messages for Valentine's day and we ended up messing up a small number of emails, including one to this address. We meant to send an email to men with a "Give a gift to her" message, and vice versa."
 
With this follow-up email, Pandora confirmed an ignorant and thoughtless attitude towards LGBT people. Pandora shouldn’t make assumptions about people based on the gender they select at registration.

Please ask Pandora to adjust their communications to be gender-neutral and LGBT-inclusive.

Photo credit: Pandora

 

Why People Are Signing
Recent Signatures

Stop Advertising that Excludes LGBT Users

Greetings,

Last week, Pandora sent an advertisement to its users for Valentine’s Day. The advertisement was directed at people based on the gender they selected at registration. The advertisement was geared towards those in heterosexual relationships, and ignored the fact that many users are LGBT.

The subject of the email intended for females, “A Musical Gift He’ll Adore - Pandora One,” assumes that all of your female users are straight. The subject line’s language could have easily been adjusted so it was gender-neutral and applied to everyone, rather than ostracizing LGBT users.

To make matters worse, when the email was accidentally sent to males, the “correction” email clarified that the messages were intended only for heterosexuals.

Please adjust your communications to be gender-neutral and LGBT-inclusive. Many of your users are LGBT and thoughtless advertisements that ignore this segment of the population will only push away LGBT users.

[Your name]

Press Inquiries