This is a (ginormous) paper I wrote about advertising aimed specifically at LGBT audiences.
Note: I have a whole page of citations for this, I'm just not posting it here right now. Please don't come after me for plagiarism...
“A successful public relations campaign must take into account the shifting dynamics of audiences and target those segments of an audience that are most desirable for its particular purpose” (Cameron, et al. 2008, pp. 243). With that in mind, how does one address an audience in the public relations domain whose mere existence is considered controversial and, by many, even debatable? Targeting such an audience will inevitably have both positive and negative consequences, and the organization or company doing so will have to weigh the pros and cons that will inevitably result from their ad campaigns.
The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) demographic is rapidly increasing in the United States. While this target market may not actually be growing in number, their visibility, acceptance, and spending power certainly are. They do not necessarily make more money than everyone else, but a higher percentage of what they do make is considered disposable income. Results of the 2000 Census showed that only one in five gay male couples and one in three lesbian couples were raising children. The prevalence of well-educated DINKs (dual-income, no kids) in the GLBT community means that the buying power of this group can be as much as $640 billion per year (Said, 2006).
Reaching this group through advertising with the intent to capitalize on all that wealth is risky business. Other emerging groups, such as the Christian right, have shown strong opposition, often boycotting companies who openly show their support for the GLBT community in any way. But what is the alternative? To deny support of GLBT individuals is to lose their business, and taking a neutral stance means opening up opportunities for other advertisers to take advantage of this new niche, and missing out.
Even worse, it seems, is targeting gays with your latest ad campaign and retracting those ads as soon as you come up against some form of conflict. Now the boycott by the religious right is followed by the GLBT community enacting a boycott of its own. Ford Motor Company learned this the hard way. In 2003, Ford began an ad campaign based on extensive consumer research, marketing the Jaguar brand to gay drivers. Ford had previously run Volvo and Land Rover ads in gay publications, but the Jaguar campaign marked the first time that such ads were designed specifically to target gay consumers.
Ford was immediately met with success for their efforts. The Volvo brand became a "platinum sponsor" of the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign (HRC). Jaguar and Land Rover became sponsors of the media watchdog organization Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). In addition to sponsoring such events, Ford also allowed buyers to fill out a coupon that instructed Ford to donate up to $1,000 to these organizations. The HRC's Corporate Equality Index gave the company a 100% rating, making it the only automaker and the largest corporation to do so. Ford was even honored at GLAAD's Fairness Awards Luncheon that year (Kuhr, 2004). Ford had decided to take a risk and openly market to the gay community. GLBT groups sang their praises, and the success of the campaign looked very promising.
Then, in 2005, the American Family Alliance (AFA) took notice and threatened a six-month boycott of Ford unless it pulled the ads and stopped sponsoring gay events. Ford relented, and GLBT activists protested. In response, Ford changed its mind and decided to run the ads after all. GLBT activists were happy, the AFA was not. In 2006, they reinstated their boycott, due to Ford’s continued “extensive promotion of homosexuality” (Cameron, et al. 2008, pp. 253). Ford had decided that the value of its target customers was worth losing sales to other segments. But by 2008, sales had dropped so much that the executives at Ford changed their minds again, agreeing to the AFA’s original 2005 terms.
To many companies, it is well worth advertising specifically to the gay audience and sticking to their guns. Subaru has enjoyed continued success of their brand within the GLBT community, without experiencing the backlash that Ford has endured. This may be because Ford has had a reputation as an “all-American” brand and certain models, such as the F-150, have traditionally been purchased by blue-collar workers with right-wing values. Subaru entered into a similar undertaking to Ford’s by conducting surveys with the intention of finding out who was driving their cars. The results were surprising.
A significant portion of their buyers were female head-of-households, and many of those were based in and around the known lesbian community of Northampton, Massachusetts. "Lesbians were fiercely loyal customers of Subaru, and their word of mouth was like gold," said John Nash, whose New York-based Moon City Productions oversees GLBT marketing and advertising for Subaru. The car company began to aggressively court gay and lesbian consumers, with notable advertisements with such slogans as "It's not a choice. It's the way we're built" (Kuhr, 2004).
Subaru’s print ads have been unflinching in their attempt to target the GLBT demographic. One ad featured three cars with license plates that read “P-TOWNIE” “CAMP OUT” and “XENA LVR,” obvious references to gay terminology and icons. The tagline read “Different drivers. Different roads. One car.” The company has also made no secret about featuring Martina Navratilova, the out lesbian tennis star, as their spokesperson. Subaru is heavily involved in fundraising and community outreach programs for gay rights organizations as well. General Motors, part-owner of the Subaru brand, has held various events, such as “Out on the Road,” the first-ever automotive program specifically designed for the gay press. GM also sponsors such gatherings as the annual conference of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays and Phoenix's “Out and Equal,” and Subaru regularly sponsors community events like the AIDS/LifeCycle charity bicycle ride in California (Kuhr, 2004).
Volkswagen has taken to targeting the GLBT audience as well, most notably in the “Da Da Da” television commercial that debuted during the coming-out episode of the Ellen DeGeneres show. The ad featured two 20-something men driving around in their Golf, and could easily be interpreted as having a gay or non-gay agenda. Volkswagen admits to begin a GLBT friendly company, and has taken part in gay pride events in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles; Chicago's North Halted Market Days street fair and festival; and Provincetown's Labor Day weekend festivities, but also seems to subscribe to the growing trend of “ambiguous” ads that may only be taken as gay if the consumer is looking for the connection.
More and more companies are creating these ambiguous ads and leaving it up to the consumer to decide who they are targeting. Others are running dual ad campaigns; one set for the GLBT crowd and a separate set for everyone else. This decreases the company’s chances of upsetting anyone, but some would say that the ambiguous route is the coward’s way out. It may also be effective for companies whose support comes largely from groups that are considered anti-gay, either in the form of stockholders or patrons. A company who runs a seemingly gay ad and gets grief over it can simply say, “That’s not what we meant at all.” The same is true for anti-gay ads.
The M&M/Mars company received complaints about a Snickers ad that was considered anti-gay. The ad featured Mr. T ridiculing a male speed walker in tiny shorts by firing Snickers bars at him out of a Gatling gun. Mr. T calls the runner “a disgrace to the man race” and orders him to “get some nuts.” Mars contends that there was no malicious intent within the ad and that it was just an attempt to be humorous and capitalize on the star of 80’s pop-culture. Gay-rights activists saw it as a call for violence against gays and the ad was ultimately pulled. The company had already been called upon to cease airing an ad that debuted during the Super bowl the previous year that showed two men accidentally kissing, and then immediately doing something manly to “get rid of the gay.”
Commercialcloset.org is a website dedicated to tracking and monitoring gay-themed advertisements. It is a part of GLAAD’s advertising media program “dedicated to promoting and ensuring fair, accurate and inclusive representation of people and events in the media as a means of eliminating homophobia and discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation” (commercialcloset.org). This site allows consumers to search or contribute ads, on TV or in print, that target the GLBT audience. It also allows them to rate such ads as being positive or negative, and tries to differentiate between ads that are truly gay-specific and those that may simply be perceived as such.
This site is a valuable tool for those who are interested in patronizing gay-friendly businesses. Unfortunately, it is also used by those who wish to boycott such companies. Amazingly, there are over 1400 television ads and 2500 print ads listed on the site to date. The ads range from the obviously gay (two men kissing – on purpose), to the “possibly gay” (the aforementioned Volkswagen ad), to the anti-gay (“Men will love you, women will hate you, lucky you’re not a lesbian”), to those that simply use a known gay celebrity as their spokesperson (Ellen DeGeneres for Cover Girl).
The ads that are intentionally gay-themed do run on mainstream TV and in mainstream magazines now and then, but more likely they are part of a separate ad campaign meant to be featured in GLBT specific media, such as in the magazines Out or The Advocate, or on the cable network Logo. This marketing technique is ideal for companies who are interested in cornering the gay market without necessarily scaring away all the right-wing conservatives. Presumably, they do not watch these channels or subscribe to these magazines, so they should never come in contact with these ads. Of course, some are so against this type of advertising that they will seek out such ads just to oppose them, but generally it works well. Absolut Vodka, Coors Brewing Company, Abercrombie & Fitch, American Airlines, Progressive insurance, and Allstate insurance have all run gay media specific ads.
The problem lies in how gays are being portrayed. In a recent series of Altoids ads, the phrase “Fruity, yet strong” was used in conjunction with the image of an effeminate looking strong man wearing a fruit hat. The phrase “Macho mint” captioned a mustached man in leather biker gear, a la The Village People. These images, as well as images of butch women portrayed as lesbians, do not represent the gay community as a whole, and are often frowned upon by those who resent stereotypes. These ads can be blamed in part for helping to fuel the discrimination that anti-gay groups show by portraying gays and lesbians as weird and “not normal.” The truth is that most gays and lesbians are perfectly normal people trying to live normal lives, and wish to be shown as such in the media. Advertisers must walk a fine line when it comes to differentiating between gay and non-gay audiences so that they can make consumers feel included without alienating them.
The other problem is with areas in which gays and lesbians do not wish to be targeted, or are being targeted for a negative reason. The tobacco industry is known for focusing on the GLBT community, mainly because there is a high incidence among gays of using their products. “One study showed that smoking rates among LGBT women (those either identifying as LGBT or reporting same-gender sexual contact) were nearly triple those among women overall (32.5% vs. 11.9%); LGBT men's smoking rate was 50% higher than that of men overall (27.4% vs.
19.1%), and the rate among transgender individuals was 30.7%” (Smith, et al, 2008). Reasons for these higher rates of tobacco usage in the GLBT community may include social disenfranchisement, discrimination, or the fact that bars and clubs are the common venues for gays to socialize.
In this case, the GLBT audience may not even realize that they are being targeted, and that may actually be the intention of the advertisers. If a group is unaware that an organization promoting unhealthy habits is putting forth any special effort to reach them, but is in fact reaching them in great numbers every day, they are less likely to think twice about their behavior. The flip side of this is advertising for AIDS awareness and the use of condoms. Studies have shown that the gay community is more susceptible to this dreaded disease, and the media should rightfully put more effort into attempts to inform them of the risks. However, those on the outside looking in may simply see heavy advertising for safe sex for the GLBT audience, and write them off as promiscuous or immoral, or even label them as the reason AIDS exists.
So many stereotypes abound regarding gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people that it seems that the only way to quell them is to spearhead a revolution; a giant movement to change people’s minds. Progress is being made due to things like celebrity influence, state legislation, and the increasing interest of the younger generation, but most of it is still within leftist circles. How can the general public be convinced that gays and lesbians are harmless, normal, and probably living right next door? It is a common occurrence that once a straight person befriends a gay person, or finds out that their brother or cousin or neighbor is gay, their views and opinions soften.
Local governments looking to capitalize on the gay dollar are counting on just that. Without even realizing it, advertisements meant to bring gays into small communities are helping straight, white, suburbanites to see that gays are not so different after all. In an attempt to raise property values and improve upon the appearance of their community, as well as the amenities it offers, city officials have begun an aggressive marketing campaign meant to convince people that the Chicago suburb of Berwyn is both affordable and amenable to people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community (Huppke, 2010).
Berwyn has always had a reputation as a blue-collar area of Chicago. Most people would not think of the suburb as an ideal destination for same-sex couples, but that is exactly what a $70,000-a-year ad campaign is trying to suggest. Titled "Why Berwyn?" it targets people of all walks of life and features billboards and radio advertisements across the Chicago area, with part of it directed specifically at the LGBT community. The mayor and other officials have said that residents have been supportive of the city's marketing to the gay community and that they are not aware of any opposition (Huppke, 2010).
Gay tourism has also become a rapidly growing market. In Fort Lauderdale, Richard Gray is expanding the 12-room Royal Palms guest house that he developed in the 1990s into a 62-room resort, adding 50 rooms and other features in two adjacent motels that are being remodeled to create what he calls the "only full-service gay hotel in North America.” The resort will include a full-service hotel, complete with a spa, gym, café and bar that is aimed gays but is also "hetero-friendly." While gay tourism is currently estimated at 5 percent of travel nationwide, it accounts for about 10 percent of tourism in Broward County, where the Royal Palms is located. Fort Lauderdale last year ranked number 7 in a nationwide survey among places gays visited and stayed in a hotel (Hemlock, 2010).
This new resort will offer the gay traveler “one-stop shopping” and businesswise, expansion seems smart. Many hotels with 20 rooms or less are struggling nowadays, as the slow economy keeps room rates down while costs keep climbing for insurance, taxes, utilities, marketing and other basics. Rooms at The Palms will likely start at $99 a night, with suites at about $289 at the peak of the winter season, and guests can stay high-tech, with an i-Pad and cell phone available at check-in. Adding rooms will spread some costs over a larger base, and the restaurant, bar, gym, and so forth will offer new sources of revenue for a hotel beyond just rooms (Hemlock, 2010).
What all this means is that the GLBT community is showing growth as an emerging demographic, as has been recognized as a viable and highly lucrative market. According to a census conducted by the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, as many as 30 million GLBT individuals live in the United States (Cameron, et al, 2008). Gay households make $65,000 a year on average and are usually well-educated. Marketing campaigns geared toward the GLBT audience have been very effective, and other members of the community are becoming increasingly comfortable with living and working with gays.
This may be one of the greatest contributions to acceptance of minority groups and a key factor in working towards ending discrimination. If gays become common enough in neighborhoods and schools, as well as in entertainment, the media, and advertising, others will eventually accept the culture and continue to adopt elements of it as their own, similar to what has happened with the African-American community. The best way to accept a culture or minority is to spend time with them and realize that they are not so different after all. GLBT advertising is helping us to do just that.
