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 Micro Penny Stocks, Penny Stocks Under $0.10
 QBID: Triangle Multi-Media Ltd Inc (Page 47)
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| Author | Topic: QBID: Triangle Multi-Media Ltd Inc |
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 16:16
  
quote: I got it, hehehe, TOO MANY PEOPLE SERIOUS IN HERE. I love this forum... Lol, IP: Logged |
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Dave Moderator |
posted April 06, 2004 16:18
QBID stillllll Hotttttt..added 200k to my collection today.. IP: Logged |
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whizknock Member |
posted April 06, 2004 16:40
WHAT THE PHUK????????????? I'm at work all day & thought I'ld log on to see if this thing held most of yesterdays gains & kept above .0035! I was looking for half a cent this week as a base & would still consider that great. In light of what I'm looking at I'm thinking we could end the week just under a penny which would be phenominal. I've been very optimistic about this play but it looks like it may out perform my expectations. All we have to do is launch! "These are the good old days!" ------------------ IP: Logged |
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 16:51
looking at a 1yr chart of the runs and dips. does anyone think at a small run of .005 it will start a medium dip again till launch? just a question, not a suggestion
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whizknock Member |
posted April 06, 2004 16:56
quote: Possible but I'm thinking we may be on a steady ride to a penny over the rest of this week & into the next week. My expectations would have been exceeded if we form a base at one cent before April 16th! Imagine this, all we have to do is launch. ------------------ IP: Logged |
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 17:33
looks like everyone has gone to get a beer. Well I will drink one to at 6:15pm.. Cheers QBIDDERS!!!
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PLF2 Member |
posted April 06, 2004 17:46
Going to get a beer as well, see everyone in the A.M. Go QBID PLF IP: Logged |
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 17:50
Ok this off the QBID subject but anyone have any input of companies that are trading that deals with RFID? http://www.alientechnology.com/ http://www.matricsrfid.com/ http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/586/1/1 researching this, IP: Logged |
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 17:53
quote: I found it, thanks, IP: Logged |
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Bart Member |
posted April 06, 2004 18:12
I see us up right off the bat in the morning. I think .005 will be hit tomorrow then we might pull back to .0046 and then rally late back to .005 late in the day. When we hit .0037 we quickly dropped to .0033 then rallied back to end up at .0039. Today we hit .0043 just to dip back to .0039. Then rallied back to .0044 just to end on the final sell at .0043. We will open at .0044 or .0045 in the morning. You see when we hit a new bearer we have fallen back .0004 each time. But we come back very quickly. My personnal opinion is that when it hits .005 tom you will not be able to sell it at .005 maybe .0049. Then on the fall back to .0046 you will not be able to buy it back at either .0046 .0047 nor .0048 because of how fast it comes back. So you just as well hang onto it. Do not take the chance that you will be able to buy it back at a lower price. It just might keep going right on thru .005. Good luck to all. I will be buying more thursday because that is when I can get my money back from my Ameritrade acct. This 3 day thing is total bull. IP: Logged |
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1BigTip Member |
posted April 06, 2004 18:25
You gotta know when to hold em', know when to fold em', know when to walk away, know when to run.... Well, I'm holding em' and I'm all in BABY! QBID - A New Era For All Of Us! IP: Logged |
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Bart Member |
posted April 06, 2004 18:45
quote: YES SIR: I am holding and will be buying more. I just have this feeling. That we are going to wake up and look at the comp and this thing is going to be flying straight up. IP: Logged |
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Nikodemis Member |
posted April 06, 2004 18:47
if u didn't get free shares a month ago, now is not the time to get it. no one right now can predict the movement of this stock, we're so volatile that we're the BOMB baby! IP: Logged |
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 18:49
<------- Sitting on his little wittle stock pile. (heheh)
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sonnydbar Member |
posted April 06, 2004 19:23
Yeeeeahhh...missed the close, just got back from a doctor's appointment, they are considering a pace maker for my heart. I told the doc I don't need no stinkin' pace maker I have QBID....he didn't get it, i had to explain, i think he might buy some.....wait til he calls his broker in the morning and mentions QBID.....yeah well, cardiologists! no sense of humor "Sunny day, chasin' the clouds away, hip hooray, that puppet's gay."....poet Ice Cube [This message has been edited by sonnydbar (edited April 06, 2004).] IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 19:26
Posted from another message board: IP: Logged |
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U4TSAF2 Member |
posted April 06, 2004 19:33
THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOLKS. 2 MONTHS OR SO AWAY FROM BROADCAST. I'M LOOKING FOR PEOPLE TO EXPLAIN TO ME ABOUT THE MARKET CAP VS. OUTSTANDING SHARES AND WHERE THE REVERSE SPLIT COMES INTO PLAY. I SEEN SOME PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THAT EARLIER BUT THEY HAVE SEEM TO DISAPPEARED. PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T COME ON THIS BOARD TO START A WAR OVER PEOPLE LIKE ME TO SPURT OFF ABOUT STUFF I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE ABOUT LIKE OUTSTANDING SHARES AND MARKET CAPS WHICH PREVENT THE STOCK FROM GOING UP PAST .004. KIND OF NICE TO SEE US HIT AN ACTUAL 350% RISE TO .0045. WE ARE IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME. I'M GLAD I DID IS FAR BETTER THAN I WISH I WOULD HAVE. MARCH 3, 2006 L2 QBID 4X4.00 RESISTANCE IS AT $4.00 AND IF WE CAN GET THROUGH THAT THE SKY'S THE LIMIT. IP: Logged |
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U4TSAF2 Member |
posted April 06, 2004 19:35
SEEMS AS IF WE HAVE SOME SMART PEOPLE ON THE OTHER BOARDS AS WELL ESTABLISHING HOW MARKET CAP AFFECTS THE SHARE PRICE. MAN, I SURE HOPE THAT HURRY UP AND GET THAT WHOLE OUTSTANDING SHARE PRICE, REVERSE SPLIT DONE AND AWAY WITH SO WE CAN FOCUS ON MAKING SOME MONEY!
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 19:40
He QBIDDERS, I received another donation in the mail for the New Orleans trip...
lol, IP: Logged |
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sonnydbar Member |
posted April 06, 2004 19:45
quote: Chuck, should have mine tommorrow, we need to bump your original poat about the trip once in awhile. May get lost in all the pages. IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 19:50
I'm not sure if it's true or not. I just found out what IBC radio is, but someone on another message board said IBC radio called QBID the "stock of the year". Here's a description of IBC radio from their website.
Other divisions and operations are in the early planning stages. IP: Logged |
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 19:57
quote:
-chuck IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 20:12
Diana is right. We need to email every media outlet we can think of. We don't have to "pump" the stock, but if enough people start to inquire about the network and it's availability, cable and satellite companies will have to take notice. Simple economics "if there is enough demand, they have no other choice but to supply it". As for the outstanding shares issue, I think people from other boards post here to discourage others from buying or holding IMHO. I'm somewhat new to all of this, but if they are wasting their time trying to get me to sell my shares, they must have a motive behind it. It's been posted before, and it all makes sense. There are many companies with huge outstanding shares. Did it hold them back? NO Did they go belly up? NO Did they make it to $1? YES If you want an example, look at SIRI. Anyone know of any broadcasting company trading less than $1? I don't. People on other boards don't either. Whoever said "All we have to do is broadcast" spoke the truth. Janie IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 20:17
Sorry about that Chuck. I'm playing catch up. I might not have read everything since last night, but I thought I did. Had to work today. Long day...LOL. Do you listen to IBC? And what do you know about the QBID chatroom that someone is forming? Janie IP: Logged |
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 20:21
quote: I am always playing catchup.. me retarded to most (hehe) anyhow I am trying to get onto that also, if you find where and how let me know. IP: Logged |
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1BigTip Member |
posted April 06, 2004 20:30
Found this. Not sure if it would help anyone but we need to email our local cable companies and post their email address here so we can all ask them to carry the Triangle Network. http://www.willywizard.com/Profile-QBID.htm QBID - A New Era For All Of Us IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 20:39
From what I can find out you are suppose to email your user name and email address to pezlady2000@yahoo.com. They say on the message board that they are trying to prevent bashers from coming there. I suppose they will try to verify this through your other postings if you are a basher or not. I don't post anywhere but here. I just read some of the other boards posts. This is home for me. But a chat room would be nice if you needed to chat back and forth from time to time and if you could prevent the bashers from ruining it.
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kguts11 Member |
posted April 06, 2004 21:02
Chuck, I bought into QBID a little later than most people on here because I am Navy and was deployed without access. I read all of this, but don't post much unless I feel I have something to offer. I'm about to email you so I can offer to send my part to help with your trip. My email is kguts11, so don't delete it. 16 more to go. Kevin
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 21:14
So far I have emailed the following , some yesterday, some today...links below www.directtv.com www.dishnetwork.com www.imctv.com http://money.cnn.com/services/speakup Cavuto@foxnews.com
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sonnydbar Member |
posted April 06, 2004 21:20
kguts, welcome to QBID, the board gets a little quiet this time of night. (u4 is out here somewhere, he never sleeps, our greatest asset to this board) It's good to have you aboard, and you're not too late for QBID. My thanks to you and everyone who serves this great country, I salute you. Trust me the QBID ship has not even got under way..... IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 21:30
Welcome to Allstocks Kevin!!! I think Diana has invited everyone to the party in Vegas. There's some very nice, very smart people here. Oh, by the way Sonny, I was new here once not so long ago and I just remembered one of the very first posts I read, written by you.... Now all I really want to know is how's your e*turd? I thought I would pee in my pants when you posted that one...LOL!!! Janelle
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John Galt's Abnormal Twin Member |
posted April 06, 2004 21:33
Woah weird stuff http://www.frankolsonproject.org/ connection? i think so IP: Logged |
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John Galt's Abnormal Twin Member |
posted April 06, 2004 21:41
OK since Barbara Lamont seems to be one of the greatest assets our company has, here's a nice speech (sp?) she wrote. WTC FEATURED SPEAKERS
by Barbara Lamont on the topic of "Women & the Technology Revolution – August 11, 1999 Good morning! I had at first thought to title my remarks "Y3K". But I got such a bad reaction from people who can't handle Y2K, that I revised the topic. As advertised, this is going to be a discussion rather than a speech. When I first thought about the Technology Revolution, Gene Schreiber called - asked me to include "women" in the title. Obviously, having been one all my life, I had no objection, but it started me thinking about how women in particular manage information, and all the historical guilt and fear that accompanies what is probably our greatest skill -- juggling the unexpected. My business partner suggested I go to the Internet for ideas. So I typed in "Women in the Global Marketplace" - try it sometime, and came up with all 6 of us. 4 if you exclude Queen Noor and Madeline Albright. Seriously, there was a web site called Voices of Women, whose offerings included subjects such as Whole living.com, heyhon.com, and articles entitled The Goddess Ungirdled, the Natural Hormone Alternative,and Abortion Access. Then there was the piece entitled Keys to Feminine Empowerment from the Yoruba West African Tradition. I had learned all about laying low in a Power Environment while running the Nigerian Television Authority for 2 years — at gunpoint. In the Moslem North they had to vote me in as an "honorary gentleman" in order to have staff meetings with me — the boss! When I tuned out the Internet, which after all, only has what folks want you to know about them, I started thinking about the Technology Revolution, and let's define that for a moment. In this century which is coming to an end, the invention of the wheel led to the automobile, highways, suburbs, fast food, condos and supersonic jets. As we enter the 21st century, the invention of the telephone, television and computer — and electronic boxes yet to be discovered — are leading to Internet communication, mass multilingual communication systems, Smart Cities, longer life spans, and the stretching of cultural sexual and communications boundaries. These all increasingly determine how we think, eat, study, work and age. What do women bring to this revolution? In the Industrial age we worked in sweatshops, we sewed and cooked, wrote for newspapers and labored in munitions factories. I consider the sexual revolution in the United States to be the single greatest event in the 20th century. How will women impact the 21st century? Let's talk frankly about some of the unusual skills women possess. We in television know that women see the color palette differently, we edit videotape differently, we paint, sculpt, and word process differently. One of the major differences is women's ability to organize. We have generations of experience in managing stress, multitasking, and taking responsibility for operational as well as strategic planning, from the kitchen to the playground. We are superb time managers. If we had to use only one word to define the Technology revolution, it would be time. With a capital T. When I was 16 I learned to drive a car. When I was 23 and learning to fly a plane, all of a sudden - a new axis. Forward (no backward), left./right, but then there was "turn and bank". Today let us explore time, the "turn and bank" of technology. Hours, days and years — the management of information and what it does to us and for us. First, you are not alone. The speed of information, fueled largely by the existence of Teleports (and other purveyors of electronic speed), is coming at us, fast & furious. We tend to think it's our fault, that we can't cope with rapid change and the bombardment of dozens of faxes, E- Mails, and so forth. But you are not alone. This is actually happening -- to everyone. You are not incompetent or disorganized. Despite the speed of information, which after all is designed to save us time, we find that even the simplest tasks now often take more time. Our ability to think is so radically enhanced by tools and toys, by interaction with other, no more one boss giving you one task at a time. We create daily as we go along. And because of this speed of information, most of the time we need to see all the pieces of a puzzle before we can even start working on the problem. History presents us with a new axis. What is green on Monday is blue one second later, and fuschia on Tuesday. The ways we are leaning to think, look, listen and communicate are propelling us into unprecendented flexibility and fluidity of thought & action. The quality of our survival over the next 150 — yes I said 150 years depends on our ability to adapt to and control rapid audio/visual stimuli, machines which process info faster than our brains, brains which work overtime while we sleep, and our ability to thrive in one giant, worldwide living room. It is very likely that most of us in this room will live well into the 21st century, perhaps even the 22nd century. What we are at 95 today will be age 150 tomorrow. I hope to see the dawning of the 22nd century. In planning to live another 100 years, we must examine how living an extended life will change what we do today? What should we study? How should we harness time? What tools will we need for managing stress and speed? The answer may lie in new ways of looking at the concept of time. The 21st century will bring new meaning to the term "time travel". Instead of traveling through time, time will be traveling through us. And unless we are poised to deal with the unexpected, remaining fluid in the face of challenges, the technology revolution can and will bury us. The challenge then is to develop brand new skills, understanding cause and effect, dealing with the larger picture. We cannot possibly win the race to master each new machine, each new phone, fax, computer, television technology. During the Industrial revolution our parents and grandparents had to learn to drive, then learn traffic signals, highway protocol, adjust to suburbs, commuting and fast food. International travel made the world a smaller place. In the 22nd century I believe the Technology revolution will create even larger and certainly swifter changes in our way of life. Already what used to take hours now takes only minutes. A bit about our company. NTI transmits voice, video and data signals from New Orleans and other cities to satellites some 23,000 miles out in space. Small dishes atop retail stores, pharmacies, gas stations, homes and offices receive these signals, providing you information and entertainment, and sending information about you to service providers. Doctors in New Orleans link with teaching hospitals in Latin America using video or live classes. Chambers of Commerce and World Trade Centers share information with hundreds of sites. I got involved with satellite technology in Business school, where at age 45 I was struggling to find a subject which I could understand and courses I could pass. Having been out of college for 25 years, I was at a career mid-point as a broadcaster, and my background in bandwidth and electronic transmission helped me enter this exciting, brand new field of communications. The Teleport is now 12 years old, and no one day is like another. We have had to get used to clients who need reliable, secure video transmission at one speed today, and large Internet services tomorrow, and mini-data streams far out at sea. The people on our staff are constantly involved in constant learning to manage time, not just their own time and space, but the second by second changes which technology brings. This third axis which makes our job so interesting is already affecting everyone's lives, making life both more rapid and more complex. Will we continue to feel more and more out of control, or will we learn to harness global change in our daily (or minute-by-minute) lives? Whether it be the confluence of telephony, fiber optics, Palm Pilots, laptops, radio or television, we are daily learning to understand that it's not about hardware, but technology - the science of systems. I'd like to leave you with something to think about. If you knew you were going to live another 100 years, how would it change the way you live today? What new skills would you learn? How would you change your vision of today's life "certainties". And how will you prepare in 1999 for a world in 2099 where people don't quit their jobs just because they move, where geography will be irrelevant and cash may be a forgotten commodity? Consider how people in 1899 could not have imagined our world today. Most did not even believe they might still be alive at age 100. Then imagine 200 times the speed of change in the next century and envision yourself in 2099, alive, healthy and well at 125. The challenge - how will you get from here to there? Welcome to the Technology Revolution. IP: Logged |
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 22:19
quote: where did this get dug up? IP: Logged |
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sonnydbar Member |
posted April 06, 2004 22:20
quote: Janelle IP: Logged |
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rg Member |
posted April 06, 2004 22:22
Emailed my local cable company asking to carry Triangle. Think we'll see .005 by tommorow? How long before our first penny? YEAH BABY..... RESISTANCE AT $4.00 AND IF WE CAN GET THROGUH THAT THE SKY'S THE LIMIT. IP: Logged |
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$CashMaker$ Member |
posted April 06, 2004 22:24
I hate it when I can't cut and paste a link. allstocks.com puts *************** in its name place for some links, BAH
[This message has been edited by $CashMaker$ (edited April 06, 2004).] IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 22:50
Taken from another board. Jump to msg. # By Michael Wilke
While individual hotels have been seeking gays for years, Wyndham International and Westin Hotels & Resorts are the latest chains to open their doors to the gay market. "I want foam pillows for me and feather ones for my partner -- he's like that," reads the new Wyndham ad, picturing a handsome man, in February issues of gay magazines. Like many corporations' first efforts in the last year, Wyndham began with a gay-specific print campaign, part of a new $10 million effort for 2004 created by Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, New York. The ad promotes Wyndham's ByRequest program, whose members get customized room amenities, such as particular beverages and snacks, when they arrive at any of the hotel's 220 locations. The ad asks, "Do you want his and his matching bathrobes?" Andrew Jordan, executive vice president-chief marketing officer for Wyndham, says, "Our brand message is about personalizing the experience. Everything we're trying to do as a brand is consistent in speaking to the individual as much as possible." Despite their new effort, Wyndham isn't patting itself on the back. "This isn't something we thought was 'bold,' " says Jordan. "Our internal reaction was, 'Why didn't we do this before?' " Their niche outreach also includes women, Latinos, seniors and African-Americans. Commitment Ceremonies Lead to Wyndham's Interest Over the last two years, a few individual Wyndham properties, such as the Belage in West Hollywood, Calif., and the Buttes Resort in Tempe, Ariz., advertised in gay media. The hotels offered special packages for commitment ceremonies and found success, which contributed to the corporate plan to go national. "The more research we did, the more it warranted more than just property-specific efforts," explains Jordan. With the recent legal victory in Massachusetts for same-sex marriage, and marriage licenses being issued in San Francisco, might Wyndham expand its commitment ceremony packages offer? "We talked about that," Jordan says, but no decisions have been made yet. Individual hotels often advertise before their national parent chains do. Back in1994, the Seattle Days Inn and La Jolla, Calif. Hyatt ran gay print ads, and then in 2000, Hyatt began a corporate national effort with general ads in gay magazines. Similarly, the Inter-Continental Hotel Paris ran an effort in 1996, then the corporation appeared in 2003 Pride publications nationally. A new gay-specific ad for inter-Continental runs in April gay magazines showing a man with champagne looking at a painting with the headline, "As far as you can get from reality TV." In Australia in 2002, Bass Hotels & Resorts ran a gay-specific ad for Holiday Inn in gay media, and so did Radisson Hotels, but they never ran in the U.S. Last year, MGM Mirage properties Borgata and New York-New York also got into the gay market, as did the Mandalay Resort Group's Luxor -- which will soon introduce a print ad with two men hugging. W Hotels Want Willow & William & Whitney & Wilma Starwood Hotels & Resorts' Westin debuted in the March 2004 edition of OUT magazine with a mainstream ad. Showing a sleeping man cuddling a pillow, and promoting the Heavenly Bed product, the text reads, "Mover and shaker by day. Remarkably motionless at night." Westin trails Starwood's chic boutique mini-chain W Hotels, which first appeared in the December 1998 issue of OUT. Last August, W appeared with a playfully romantic black-and-white ad with two men in bed as one asks, "Do you have the energy to roll over and call for brunch?" Male couple ads ran in gay media and Gotham, Hamptons, and LA Confidential, with a female couple version to come soon. Openly gay chief marketing officer Ross Klein says the in-house ad agency kept showing him images of "Willow & William" in ads -- carrying the 'W' theme in naming -- and he told them, "You should be nonspecific or show a much greater inclusion of people. So then we also had 'Walter & Ward' and 'Whitney & Wilma.' " W promoted its Weekenders packages to Pride events in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Seattle and San Francisco. "We did very well" in response rates, Klein notes. Not letting the W's rest, Klein also mentions that a program called "Whatever, Whenever" was modified to add "For Whomever" to be gay-inclusive. Front desk staff and Welcome Ambassadors were trained to expect same-sex couples, not stumble over a question about a single bed in the room. "We've had wonderful, wonderful feedback," notes Klein, still working the W's. Gay and lesbian travel represents a $54.1 billion segment, or an estimated 10% of the U.S. travel industry, according to Community Marketing Inc. Its 2001-2003 study of the market found a remarkeable 97% took vacations in the past 12 months (national average is 64%) and 82% spent 5 or more nights in hotels. With those types of numbers, Wyndham's Jordan sees a largely untapped opportunity in the hotels category. "No one is out there talking to (gay travelers) to the degree that we are," he notes. "There's an opportunity for us to own the market and build loyalty." He expects the effort to grow in 2004. But W isn't wandering away. A new campaign called Wonderland (as in Alice) is expected in May with gay-specific ads. As W Hotels opens new properties in Sydney, Mexico City, Montreal and Seoul, bringing it to 20 locations, Klein hints it may even become the first corporation to run gay-specific ads internationally. W-W-Whew
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sonnydbar Member |
posted April 06, 2004 22:53
Palm Springs is one of the USA's premier gay holiday destinations. Around an hour's flying time from Los Angeles, it's in fact a sprawling collection of a number of attractive small cities in the middle of the desert. Gay tourists tend to stay in small independently owned resorts which all feature small villas or rooms surrounding pools, jacuzzis and gardens. Well i spent the evening e mailing as many web sites as i could find after doing a search for "palm springs gay community" I asked if anyone would be interested in helping a stock group with a little research on Triangle TV Network in Palm Springs. May require a visit to the location, etc. Also gave them info on QBID and how it is going to explode and they may want to be a part of it.....who knows i might find a friendly willing to help....going to bed.....see if my wife can jump start my pace maker....he he IP: Logged |
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DiQuiRiesco Member |
posted April 06, 2004 23:04
Wild,fun,crazy shows lined-up 4 QBID/TTN.Link: (looks like programs have been ready since last year) www .redsoapbox.com/streamingvideo.html
About QGoes: About the network: Every one remeber who redsoapbox is? They are the ones producing the gay marriage documentary!
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 23:06
Also posted on another board**Potential Advertisers/Corporate Investors*******
While digital cameras may be everywhere, the Tokyo-based Casio Computer Company is the first maker to bring them into gay media. Seeking to regain its lead and distinguish itself in a heavily competitive market, Casio has introduced gay consumers to its year-old Exilim EX-S3, a thin, credit-card sized digital camera, with banner ads on Gay.com and Planetout.com. The animated banners highlight the camera's size and features, and include an image of handsome young men together on the camera's back LCD screen. "We wanted to emphasize its features, size and stylishness," says Yuko Ishikawa, strategic marketing manager. "We've been struggling to keep market share. We're hoping to make a comeback. We believe Exilim is a very unique concept and a 'lifestyle product.'" Casio Rebounding "We've realized it's hard to come back quickly in a market now dominated by the major players: Sony, Canon, Olympus, Nikon and Kodak," Ishikawa says. "Competition and pricing is so fierce. And unfortunately, U.S. consumers are conservative. We cannot invest the marketing money compared to our major competitors, so we decided to target users instead." The gay community's reputation for being "early adopters," "influencers" and fashion-conscious were the deciding factors. "We learned about gay market segmentation and that they are into high-technology and fashionable products," notes Toshi Iguchi, Casio's manager of mobile & imaging for global marketing, who became interested after reading an article published by the market research firm Packaged Facts. Osmosis MediaLab in New York was selected as the brand's agency after a brief review in summer 2003. Their campaign was launched online in December in time for the competitive holiday season. Online media was the first medium of choice for Casio because "we have a limited budget and it's easier to track," says Ishikawa. Results are being tracked by click-through rates, and the campaign continues into 2004 with support for another model, the Exilim EX-Z4U. Other media are now also under consideration, Casio executives say. In a rare, multinational approach, though not coordinated with the U.S. effort, Casio is also pursuing the "pink pound" in England. Panasonic and Mitsubishi Enter the Fray The company may have some image problems after a commercial for its electric shaver received negative reviews from gay viewers. That 2002 spot, from Kaplan Thaler in New York, was set in a prison. When one prisoner rubs the face of another and compliments his smooth skin, a prison riot breaks out. Consumer electronics remains an underdeveloped category in the gay market, but Panasonic joins high-end Danish electronics maker Bang and Olufsen, also new to the market. Over the years, a few other high-end stereo equipment makers have sought gay listeners. Harmon International Industries' JBL speakers from the U.S. were advertised in the Advocate back in 1994. Another Japanese electronics brand, Aiwa, had a brief presence in OUT magazine in 1996. The Mitsubishi Galant sedan rode into the February issue of OUT for the first time with a general market ad. It is among the latest major entries in automotive advertising, increasingly a crowded market, along with General Motors' Cadillac which also introduced general ads in gay magazines. The first Japanese-owned brand entered the gay media in 1996. The maverick was a car company, Subaru of America, owned by Fuji Heavy Industries. The Galant's 2004 campaign is supported by the largest spending ever in the company's history, according to a Mitsubishi spokeswoman, and includes "the first print ads we've done in a very, very long time. The idea was to really broaden our customer market. We wanted to reach as wide an audience as possible, families, different segments that we hadn't touched. We're very inclusive in how we look at a number of things, as far as diversity." The message, she says, is that, "Our products are stylish and stand out in a crowd." Rounding out the Japanese presence, watchmaker Seiko has been in gay media since 1998, and is currently advertising its Kinetic line there. On the Sidelines As a result, the new Japanese marketers willing to court the gay market with a tailored approach and consistent presence may be able to win a place for themselves before their competitors even notice.
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 23:11
Good Potential For The Gay Market COMMERCIAL CLOSET
Aimed at gay business leaders and gay-owned businesses, IBM's first overtly gay ad carries the headline, "Chelsea, Provincetown, The Castro, Armonk," a list of famous gay destinations, followed by Big Blue's headquarters town. The photo includes Sarah Siegel and Joseph Bertolotti, IBM's dedicated sales team to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. They began selling directly to lgbt leaders at major corporations and lgbt-owned businesses in 2001. IBM is the second major corporation with a dedicated lgbt sales team. American Airlines started a gay market manager position in 1994 and later formed the Rainbow TeAAm. However, American didn't begin developing gay ads for business-to-business and consumer sales until 1999, because the company preferred the visibility it earned through sponsorships. Earlier Ads Too Gay Vague Siegel said, "Mom & Pop was a huge, huge hit. People were charmed by it and still talk about it." The ad was part of a larger campaign that included other underrepresented groups, such as people of color and those with disabilities. But, Siegel said, the reference to the men as a couple was very oblique, and "I was so hungry for something new." The recent Doonan ad was not the solution. "We knew that an inner circle of New York lgbt people would know who he is, but we weren't satisfied with that," Siegel said. "We wanted even more lgbt specificity. It went into all sorts of mainstream publications, but the bad news was it was too 'gay vague.'" In preparing for the new ad, IBM did an "extensive" study of lgbt decision makers who work in Internet technology. "What we found was that lgbt people did not natively see IBM as approachable in the lgbt arena," says Siegel. So the new ad was to focus on approachability. She continued, "Joseph and I were real clear that it had to show real IBMers and that it be absolutely diverse." Internally, Siegel helped cast the ad from people involved with IBM's Employee Alliance for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Empowerment (EAGLE). They created a volunteer media talent pool, then the ad agency made the final selections. From 'IBM Really?' to 'IBM Of Course!' In fact, Siegel notes with pride, "People don't know we hired women and blacks prior to 1899," ten years before the NAACP was founded and twenty years before women could vote. At that time, the company was still known as the Computer Tabulating & Recording Equipment Company. The name became International Business Machines in 1924. More recently, IBM was one of the first corporations to add a non-discrimination policy for lgbt people in 1984. Benefits were extended to same-sex partners in 1997. In 2002, IBM added "gender identity" to their non-discrimination policy worldwide, and supported the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which specifically protected lgbt workers. ENDA failed to pass at that time, but was reintroduced late in 2003. The Armonk print ad reflects other changes. For instance, there are no blue suits. Siegel notes, "We really all did use to wear blue suits and white shirts before my time, but that's what our customers wore." Siegel, who began with IBM as a consultant in 1990 and was hired full time in 1996, wears a turquoise blouse in the ad. Diversity Pays Off "This was our second full year, and the first year we had to show we could drive revenue," Siegel says of the dedicated lgbt sales team. IBM now has similar lgbt sales teams in France, the Netherlands, Britain, Mexico and Canada. The diversity effort appears to be paying off for everyone. Touts Siegel, "I've never felt IBM welcomes me despite my sexual orientation; I've always felt IBM welcomes me because of my orientation." IBM, along with American Airlines, have been leading the way in showing that gay dollars don't just come from reaching individual consumers, and that relationships remain as important as they always have, even in business-to-business sales. IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 23:15
They can spend these advertising bucks on the Q Channel. COMMERCIAL CLOSET Orbitz Travels to Gay Cable TV A gay twist to reach the gay market. By Michael Wilke Going Direct In the gay twist, the man also eyes a stud through the binoculars. Roman Coppola, son of Francis Ford Coppola, directed the spot from Young & Rubicam, Chicago. It is the first-ever customized commercial meant to speak directly to a gay audience, and it will begin airing on gay-themed programs on Bravo Network and BBC America, running through the summer. It will appear on BBC's, "So Graham Norton," a racy talk show with a gay host, the gay-friendly, "Absolutely Fabulous," as well as two new Bravo shows, the dating program, "Boy Meets Boy" and a fashion makeover show, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," debuting July 15. "I'm trying to show Orbitz is a gay-friendly company, not just bring traffic to our site," says Jeff Marsh, the Chicago-based company's openly gay director of marketing strategy and promotions. "The genesis of this ad idea came when I read the storyboards. It was immediately apparent I could put a gay twist on it and make a gay ad." Queers Big Business Because of its popularity, the Gay Travel section (known as a microsite) landed a link on the home page, along with high volume links including Disney, Las Vegas, Europe, and others. "Because the microsite is so successful, the commercial was a no-brainer," explains Marsh, who spent six years in marketing at Quaker Oats Co. "When Bravo was launching those two programs, it made the media plan possible." Finding Homes Bravo received a lot of attention for its shows debuting in July. "Boy Meets Boy" features a 32-year-old from Southern California looking for love among 15 potential male mates, some of whom are just pretending to be gay. The six-episode program was shot in Palm Springs and only kissing was allowed. On "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," a team of gay males guide fashion-challenged straight men. Last summer, the NBC-owned Bravo network featured "Gay Weddings," in 2001 "Gay Riviera" and "Fire Island" in 2000, all reality series. It also featured "Out of the Closet," its annual June festival of gay programming. "Gay Weddings" did particularly well, bringing the network its highest ratings ever when aired against the Super Bowl, obviously reaching a different audience. Travel advertising continues to grow in the gay market. Reservations company Worldspan has recently begun a relationship with Gay.com and Planet Out to offer up a "private label" search engine for airfares on those sites, part of the company's new strategy for affiliate programs. Flying the Flag Across the Atlantic, Travelocity broke a campaign in the UK featuring interviews with stereotypical male flight attendants delivering sexual innuendoes, but the ad was not intended to appeal to gay viewers. The clip is presently being furiously passed around the Internet. While Bravo has not officially tried to pitch its new programs to companies seeking the gay market, it's in a unique position to solicit them, though it will take some work. Advertisers have little experience in seeking gay TV viewers, with hurdles including a lack of research on gay viewing habits, greater cost of TV production and media, and small gay marketing ad budgets. But the benefits include reaching a larger, more diverse audience than existing media. Sharp-eyed executives can achieve affordable, gay-targeted TV efforts with minor changes in creative execution and smart media plans. IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 23:20
COMMERCIAL CLOSET Avis Courts Gay Market Puts domestic partners in the driver's seat. By Michael Wilke
Their new ad campaign, which began this summer, features a gay male couple and emphasizes a point other rental agencies cannot: "Domestic partners are automatically included as additional drivers. No extra fees charged. No questions asked." Gay Blitz "This is our biggest investment in a vertical (niche) marketing effort," notes Scott Deaver, executive VP of marketing for Cendant Car Rental Group, which owns Avis and Budget Rent a Car. "We made a big bet on this one, we think this is very important." The campaign appears in national gay magazines and in program books for gay film festivals in 10 cities. Impax Marketing, Philadelphia, developed the effort, which includes a special link to their web site (http://avis.com/prouder) that offers a $1 donation to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation per rental when using a special code. Avis also was a sponsor of the GLAAD Media Awards. Driver Spouses vs. Partners In general, rental companies have an unpredictable patchwork of policies for all additional drivers because many operate through franchises, and these decisions are up to the local owner. As a result, some franchises may charge for any second driver, while others may allow one extra driver free no matter who it is. Predictably, rental agency owners at the hottest gay destinations may accommodate partners without additional fees. Because Avis agencies are 95 percent company-owned, their agencies have virtual uniformity in a gay-inclusive second-driver policy. "Avis prides itself on treating customers better than other people treat them," Deaver says. Rental Roulette Tulsa-based Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, which owns Dollar and Thrifty, has run business-to-business ads for Thrifty in the Australian Tourism publication, and in Gay Travel News since January 2002. However, Thrifty generally requires unmarried couples to pay an additional driver charge. Dollar hasn't done any gay marketing and has varying policies. In 1996, AutoNation's National Car Rental System initiated a direct mail campaign to gay consumers, but even today National only specifies "spouse, business partner, employer or fellow associate" as a free additional driver. At the same time, National's Emerald Club members may designate anyone as another driver free if they share a household. Alamo Rent A Car advertised in The Advocate in 1998. Their charges vary, but often any additional driver brings an extra charge. The Hertz Corporation, the industry leader, has never advertised in gay media, but specifies a "spouse or domestic partner" can be added free in most locations. Backlash Against Campaign, Little Support In contrast, Deaver says that the company has not received any letters from the gay community in support of the campaign. The changing face of travel motivated Avis to seek out new consumers. "After 2001, corporate travel shrunk more than leisure travel." explains Deaver. "Corporate travel was not as price sensitive, but I had to find leisure travelers who also were not as price sensitive." That turned out to be people who were "experience committed," those who preferred interesting trips over cheap getaways. Deaver found gay consumers often fit that profile. "Avis is not the cheapest of the car rental companies," Deaver says. "We're the best in terms of product and service quality. Our leisure marketing strategy is to find people willing to pay more to get more." He realizes that won't happen over night. "I'm not spending enough to make something happen today," but he promises a multi-year effort. "One ad is not going to make everybody change their habits." But putting gay-friendly consumer policies in place and creating innovative, high profile, lasting advertising sure is a great start. IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 23:28
04-06-2004
Online First The study also shows that lesbians and gay men got online earlier. Almost 30% have been online for more than seven years, compared with 18% of straight men and women. In addition, Forrester found gay men are more likely to own portable MP3 players, browser-enabled phones and personal video recorders. EarthLink, headquartered in Atlanta, began advertising in the gay media last year, and this summer paid for full-page inserts carrying pictures of same-sex couples and the headline, "Face the Music — your Internet service should be as fabulous as you are." The campaign is to run throughout the year in Genre, Instinct, OUT and The Advocate, as well as Girlfriends, Curve, and Baby, local gay newspapers and Pride events. Online ads will run on Gay.com and Planetout.com, and EarthLink is holding a sweepstakes giving away an iPod and an iMac. Directed Campaign Many of the EarthLink gay market ads are cardboard inserts that include a CD with software to install the service, along with three songs from Heather Headley, a Tony Award winner for Elton John's AIDA. Two tunes, "I Wish I Wasn't" and "He Is," are exclusively remixed by superstar DJ Junior Vasquez. "We wanted music and artists that are relevant to our target," says Travis Pagel of Osmosis Medialab, New York, which handles EarthLink's gay market efforts. "One of the things we wanted to do was get this [software] into people's hands and the music was something that got people to connect with the CD and use it." Popping the Question Consistent with previous studies of select groups, gays turned out to have somewhat higher incomes and education levels. Lesbians earned $6,600 more per year than straight women, and 19% of gay men and lesbians have post-graduate degrees compared to 14% of straight men and 12% of straight women. According to the report, "Gays lead in the adoption of a whole host of emerging technologies and almost every online activity we ask about in our surveys. It's true that any group of higher-income and more highly educated consumers will be earlier adopters of technology. But even after adjusting statistically for online tenure and demographic differences — including the likelihood to be coupled and have children — we find significant differences in gay people's technology behaviors." Digital Divide Lesbian and gay consumers also use the Internet more for dates and porn. Twenty-five percent of gays vs 7% of straights use the Internet for personal ads. Forty-one percent of gays vs. 12% of heterosexuals use it for porn. Community, entertainment and fashion sites also attract lesbian and gay users. Gay.com brought in 39.9% of gays online in the last 30 days, while Planetout.com brought 32.8%, and AOL Chat 8%. Sports sites were only a little less popular for gays at 21% compared to 28% for straights. Study Conclusions Falter Forrester also recommends, "Because gay men and women stand out from heterosexuals in many of the same ways, one ad campaign will usually suffice to reach them both." This does not take into account differences of media use for gay men versus lesbians or the challenge of making an equally enticing message for both sexes. IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 23:42
Updated Search Stock 4/6/2004 QBID TRIANGLE MULTI-MEDIA INC 0.004 +0.000 +10.26% Daily Commentary Our system recommends BUY as of today. Previous SELL recommendation was made on 3/16/2004 (21) days ago, when the stock price was 0.003. Since then the stock gained 72.00% . Today the stock closed higher with a higher high and a higher low. The volume is high. The security price is trending up and is overbought.
Click here to get a full trend analysis of this stock Candlestick Analysis Today’s Candlestick Patterns: Today a White Candlestick formed. Buyers were in control but the buying pressure was not very strong.
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 06, 2004 23:54
Gay Episcopalians Among Most Active in Church Wed August 6, 2003 11:17 AM ET NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gay Episcopalians in the United States are among the most active participants in their congregations, according to a new survey released on Wednesday. A survey of 8,831 gay people found that 57.6 percent of gays that identify themselves as Episcopalians say they actively participate in their religion. Only gays of the Metropolitan Community Church, Unitarians and Pagans had a higher rate of religious participation, at 79.4 percent, 66.7 percent and 84.6 percent respectively, the study found. The 2002/2003 survey, conducted by Syracuse University and research group OpusComm, comes amid tensions in the U.S. Episcopalian Church, which on Tuesday elected its first openly gay bishop -- a controversial decision that has raised the possibility of a schism within the religion. "Our new study may reflect some changes due to this political and cultural shift," said Syracuse University lead researcher Amy Falkner. Homosexuals, she said, "may feel safer and more welcomed in expressing their respective religious beliefs." The largest percent of those surveyed -- 17.6 percent -- said they were Catholic, but that less than a third of those were active in their church. Back to Top With 8,831 respondents, the census is the largest and most comprehensive GLBT consumer study ever conducted. Prepared by GLCensus Partners (Syracuse University and OpusComm Group), the annual study fills the growing need among manufacturers and service providers for detailed information on consumer behavior and preferences of GLBT people. Of those respondents who answered both questions, there are 11 religions with 200 or more members. Among these, the highest percentage of those saying they are practicing members of their respective religions are: Pagan (84.6%), Metropolitan Community Church (79.4%), Unitarian (66.7%), Episcopal (57.6%), and Jewish (47.5%). "The gap of those who practice their religion versus those who don't appears to vary based on how various religious sects are perceived of as being more embracing of the GLBT community than those which are not," comments Jeffrey Garber, president of OpusComm Group Inc. and founder of the GLCensus Partners study. "In the last two years of conducting the GLCensus, the results to the series of religious questions have not changed," explains Amy Falkner of Syracuse University, lead researcher on the project. "Perhaps, given the recent Supreme Court decision and the election in the Episcopal Church, GLBT people may feel safer and more welcomed in expressing their respective religious beliefs. Our new study may reflect some changes due to this political and cultural shift." Back to Top PlanetOut Posts First Profit, By JENNIFER SARANOW PlanetOut Partners Inc., a publisher of gay and lesbian community sites, reported Wednesday that it achieved its first profitable quarter, helped by the popularity of its online dating services. The closely held company's PlanetOut Personals and Gay.com Personals sites accounted for more than half of quarterly revenue, the company said, underscoring how online publishers have embraced pay services amid a flat online advertising environment. "Advertising provided a foundation [and] online dating provided the fuel for growth," said PlanetOut Partners President and Chief Executive Officer Lowell Selvin. For the period ended March 31, PlanetOut said it had unaudited quarterly net income of just more than $100,000, compared with a loss of $1.2 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue was $4.5 million, up from $3 million a year earlier. The company (www.planetoutpartners.com1) said online matchmaking revenue accounted for about 58% of revenue. Ad revenue, which included a Chrysler campaign, accounted for about 28%. PlanetOut Personals, geared more for relationships, and Gay.com Personals, more for dating and finding friends, launched about two years ago. Today the sites have a combined total of 2.3 million profiles. Together with other paid offerings of PlanetOut Partners, such as its travel newsletter, the company said it has about 100,000 paying subscribers. Online dating is booming for people of all sexual preferences. The category had $302 million in revenue in 2002, according to comScore Networks and the Online Publishers Association. But Internet personals are particularly attractive to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender market, industry watchers say, where discretion and fears of discrimination can be high priorities. "The easiest and most comfortable way for many [gay] people is online dating," says Jeffrey Garber, president of OpusComm Group, which specializes in gay marketing and advertising. Mr. Garber is also a founding partner of GLCensus Partners, which studies habits of gay consumers. At most online dating sites, anyone can browse listings, but users have to pay a monthly fee to make contact with prospective dates. At PlanetOut's sites, PlanetOut Personals charges $12.95 a month, while Gay.com Personals charges $16.95 a month. Some companies are targeting both gay and straight audiences. MatchNet PLC, which runs niche personals sites including gay11.com, CollegeLuv and JDate.com, said registered users at gay11.com (soon to be rebranded glimpse.com) grew 60% to 746,000 at the end of the first quarter from a year earlier. Meanwhile, dating mammoth Match.com says it currently has about 785,000 registered men seeking men and 617,000 registered women seeking women, up 25% from a year earlier, while Match.com's gay-specific site, altmatch.com, has about 124,000 registered men and 70,000 registered women. Overall, Match.com had about eight million registered users and 766,000 paid subscribers as of March 31. "I think people would be surprised," by the size of the gay dating scene on Match.com, says Trish McDermott, vice president of romance at Match, a unit of USA Interactive, New York. PlanetOut Partners said it expects the trends in its personals business and profitability to continue. The San Francisco company, which has about 125 employees, is projecting revenue of $24 million for the year, and positive net income for full-year 2003 and 2004. PlanetOut Partner's investors include J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Mayfield Fund, IDG and AOL Time Warner. Write to Jennifer Saranow at jennifer.saranow@wsj.com From Prudential to Krispy Kreme to Toyota, companies of all sizes and sectors are seeking to proclaim themselves gay friendly to woo a consumer market known for its considerable purchasing power and brand loyalty. ''It's sort of a new frontier,'' said Jeffrey S. Garber, president of OpusComm Group, which specializes in gay marketing and advertising. ``Especially with the economic downturn, companies are realizing that GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender] is a good market to go after.'' Some 90 companies will be setting up shop today and Sunday to do just that at the Gay Life Expo at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The fair, the first to be held locally, is sponsored by JPMorganChase and Bacardi's Martí rum brand and is expected to draw upward of 5,000 people, according to its organizer, Consolidated Management Associates of New York. Such events are important venues for companies seeking to declare themselves sensitive to gay people. And that's no small matter. According to a gay-consumer study done last year by OpusComm affiliate GL Census Partners, 82 percent prefer buying from gay-friendly companies, defined, in part, as those that extend benefits to domestic partners, have nondiscrimination policies and advertise in specialized media. ''There's a heightened political awareness in the gay community,'' said David Treece, past president of the Miami-Dade Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. ``These events give visibility that is very helpful to companies.'' Once a company is found to be gay friendly, ''brand loyalty is very strong,'' Garber said. Companies that run afoul of sensibilities may court trouble. When United Airlines failed to extend benefits to its employees' domestic partners in 1997, gays and lesbians boycotted it in favor of American Airlines, which did. United backed down in 1999 and, a year later, became one of the first companies to distance itself from radio talk-show host Laura Schlessinger, known as ''Dr. Laura,'' after she remarked on the air that gay people were ''deviants'' and ``biological errors.'' Those comments sparked a well-publicized ruckus and caused Procter & Gamble and auto insurer GEICO, among others, to yank their commercials from her show. Schlessinger eventually apologized. Several characteristics make this niche attractive to marketers. Gays index high on travel, grocery purchases and restaurant and wine consumption, the GL Census found. Spoiling pets is also common, said Tim Winters, sales coordinator for Gay Life Expo, where pet cemeteries and adopt-a-pet agencies are common exhibitors. ''Pets are kind of surrogate kids,'' Winters said. Relatively few gay households have children, which means that gay people have more discretionary income. And they like to spend on novel items. ''Gay people are innovative spenders,'' Winters said. ``They like to be on the forefront of new, very different trends.'' And then there's the matter of affluence. According to the GL Census, 32 percent of gay male households and 17 percent of gay female households reported annual incomes of over $100,000, making this a prime market for financial-service and insurance companies and automakers. ''They realize the value of the market,'' said Rafael Armada, president of Miami-Dade Chamber, which counts such mainstream corporations as MetLife, BankUnited and American Express among its 200 members. And not only are companies seeking gay consumers; they're seeking gay employees, too. Gay Life Expo, which also holds shows in New York and Philadelphia, often allots recruiting pavilions to such gray-suit firms as PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Deloitte & Touche as well as to MBA programs. It's all part of mainstream America's growing acceptance of gay people, Winters said, adding: ``You didn't see this 20 years ago.'' Back to Top OAKLAND - Like many Bay Area travelers, Kathi Heimann has eclectic tastes. In October 2001, she spent a week at a Club Med resort in Mexico where she rode horses through the surf, snorkeled with sea lions, and learned how to water ski. In January, she took a cruise to the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands. Despite the many booking options that exist, including the Internet and various travel agencies, she signed up for both trips, and plans to do the same for future vacations, through Oakland-based Olivia Cruises & Resorts, a niche tour operator. Heimann, who lives in San Ramon, chose Olivia for one simple reason: because its trips are geared for women like her. "I can enjoy the atmosphere without standing out," she said. "It's not that I couldn't go on a straight cruise -- I could. But could I hold another woman's hand?" Olivia has made a business out of providing trips where women like Heimann can feel comfortable holding each others' hands. The Oakland company has sent 50,000 lesbians on 56 cruises and tours since 1990. "We have created an environment where people feel free to be themselves for seven days or 10 days," said Judy Dlugacz, the company's founder. Dlugacz said that the safe-haven aspect of Olivia may explain why its business has grown since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, while the mainstream travel industry has sputtered. Olivia is not a gay rights organization or a social club, although it might be mistaken for one because of its social consciousness and repeat customers. What it has become over the years is a profitable business. This year it will gross $12 million, based on the trips it has planned. The company projects that it will grow annually for the foreseeable future by 30 percent by adding more trips and other services. Its staff of 25 is slated to grow to 35 by year's end. Olivia, which appears to be the nation's only major travel provider for lesbians, began 30 years ago as a record label. Dlugacz, then 20, had just graduated from the University of Michigan, and planned to apply to law school, when she took a detour. She and eight friends borrowed $4,000 to produce albums by lesbian singers such as Cris Williamson and Meg Christian. They named their company after the main character in an eponymous novelette about lesbian romance that was published in 1949 and subtitled, "The story of a love that dare not tell its name." Dlugacz outlasted her friends, and soon branched into producing concerts. In 1990 she chartered her first all-lesbian cruise, which she thought of as a "7-day long concert" that would highlight Olivia artists. Six hundred women on the record label's mailing list rushed to sign up for the trip, and Dlugacz realized she had discovered a niche market. One special moment for Dlugacz came in 1993 when Olivia travelers cruising the Mediterranean docked on the island of Lesbos and held a vigil for Sappho, the ancient Greek poet whose poems have inspired many lesbians. The gods on Mt. Olympus may have heard the group's call. Over the next decade, Dlugacz has expanded rapidly. This year it will offer six cruises, 13 bike trips, five walking tours, 15 sports-oriented trips, and three resort vacations, including one at a Florida Club Med designed for gays and lesbians with families. With lesbian travel booming, the record label now represents only a sliver of Olivia's business. The company still uses entertainment to draw travelers. The Indigo Girls will make their first appearance on an Olivia cruise this year, joining staples like comedienne Suzanne Westenhoefer. Amy Errett, the company's CEO, may be another reason why the company's business has doubled since 2000. Errett joined a year ago after working as a top executive at E*Trade. She holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. After starting her career at Bankers Trust, she started her own consulting company, which she eventually sold to Interpublic Group, the advertising and marketing conglomerate. When Errett arrived at Olivia a year ago, she decided that its infrastructure needed to be upgraded. She stripped out the old computer system and built a new call center. She invested money in the Web site and embarked on new marketing projects. "Right now we are just scratching the surface of the lesbian market," she said. Marketing to the nation's estimated 6 million lesbians poses a challenge because many lesbians do not openly identify themselves. Unlike gay men, lesbians do not typically congregate in specific urban neighborhoods like the Castro and instead keep a lower profile in the suburbs. Still, demographers agree that the lesbian market can be targeted. "There is a great need for the community to travel together on a cruise, or to a resort," said Jeffrey Garber, the president of Syracuse-based Opuscomm Group, which studies the gay market. "If you live in New York or you live in San Francisco, you can be part of a lesbian community. But otherwise you need to plug in to an environment where you feel secure." Garber's company runs what he calls the "2002 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census," which revealed that only 2.5 percent of lesbian respondents have ever traveled on a gay cruise, suggesting that Olivia has not exhausted the market. And Olivia doesn't think that as the world becomes more tolerant, gay women will start to feel comfortable in mainstream settings and abandon gay cruises. The point, Errett said, is not just to escape discrimination, but also to have a unique experience with other women. Still, discrimination has been a factor in Olivia's history. In 1998, an angry mob in the Bahamas turned a cruise ship away. Dlugacz said the company has avoided similar situations by keeping a lower profile abroad and avoiding countries, such as heavily Islamic ones, that might object to her passengers. Many countries, she said, welcome Olivia women. Turkey, for example, has been receptive, and on one occasion, she said, a friendly Turkish gathering greeted a ship and merchants shouted, "Lovely lesbian ladies, please come to our shops." Like the Turkish shopkeepers, Errett also has plans to capitalize on the women of Olivia. She imagines Olivia as a "lifestyle company." "Look at Virgin. It's an airline and music company," she said. "Disney is there to create experiences for people, whether through media, entertainment, travel, Internet, and sports." Right now, the company could easily expand to offer market research and services for same-sex households like wills and money management, said Errett. Eventually, Olivia could even help plan lesbian retirement communities. Heimann, one of Olivia's satisfied customers, is excited by that prospect. "When you get a group of women together, they always talk about, 'Where are we going to live when we get older.' Back to Top Researchers say the most surprising aspect of this year's gay marketing survey is that nearly all the respondents identified themselves as being out of the closet. ''Being out -- 92.3 percent are out to their friends. That's a society change,'' said New York advertising executive Jeffrey Garber, whose agency co-conducted the just-released survey. ``It's a higher percent than people think and it continues to grow.'' This year, there was a 40 percent increase in the number of people who took the Internet survey of gay and lesbian consumers. Despite the sharp increase in respondents, survey results were nearly identical to the first GL (Gay/Lesbian) Census in 2001. ''To get a 40 percent increase and have the results almost identical within a percentage point, it tells me this really is the most clear picture of the [gay and lesbian] community,'' Garber said. Among the striking similarities: • In both 2001 and 2002, 82 percent said they were more likely to buy products or purchase services from companies they know are gay friendly. • Last year, 89.8 percent of those taking the survey were registered voters; in 2002, 90 percent. ''The findings have a tremendous application for social scientists, advertisers, political leaders and the general population,'' Garber said. ``The more information that is out about a community, the better understood it can be, and the better tool to break down stereotypes that have existed a long time.'' Garber and Amy Falkner, a Syracuse University advertising assistant professor, developed a volunteer Internet survey in 2001. The study was conducted by GL Census Partners, a joint project of Garber's ad agency, OpusComm Group; S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University; and GSociety, the first publicly traded gay company specializing in media/entertainment. In 2001, the goal was 5,000 responses. More than 6,350 came in. This year's survey, which ran July 8 through Aug. 19, generated 8,831 responses. This year 54.2 percent of the respondents were men, about the same percentage as in 2001. GL Census Partners relies on the Internet because ''it's probably the safest place where gay people around the country and around the world can participate,'' Garber said. The surveys each took 45 to 50 minutes to complete. Respondents were given passwords so they could take breaks, then log back in where they left off. Afterward, the researchers checked for ''pattern recognition'' to make sure the same people weren't taking the survey over and over, Garber said. Garber said participants took the survey because ``they felt it was important as a community.'' ''If they can educate the general public and advertisers -- if they identify themselves as consumers -- advertisers would take notice and target them,'' he said. That's exactly the reason why Saturn automobiles bought last year's survey results. ''We got a gauge on the vehicles that this segment of customers owned, and we got some key demographics and media habits that are important for planning any advertising,'' said Bryan Mahlmeister, market research manager and brand coordinator for Saturn in Detroit. Mahlmeister said the survey ''gave us a good snapshot'' of the gay automobile market and how it affects Saturn. The survey showed Saturn was the most popular General Motors division among gay consumers. ''We were surprised that we came out so far on top in ownership,'' Mahlmeister said. That information has encouraged Saturn to continue marketing itself to the gay community, advertising in gay-oriented magazines such as The Advocate, he said. When New York advertising executive Jeffrey Garber set out to survey gay and lesbian consumers, he knew there would be a major obstacle. 'It's not like you can get on the telephone and say `Ma'am, you sound gay, I'd like to ask you a few questions,' '' Garber said. ``It's an incredible problem. In 39 states where you have discrimination laws still on the books, you are talking about a population that's not going to readily identify itself to strangers.'' To make respondents more comfortable, Garber and Amy Falkner, a Syracuse University advertising assistant professor, developed a volunteer Internet survey in 2001. The study was conducted by GL Census Partners, a joint project of Garber's ad agency, OpusComm Group; S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University; and GSociety, the first publicly traded gay company specializing in media/entertainment. Last year's survey goal was 5,000 responses. More than 6,350 came in. The 2002 survey ended Aug. 15 and results are still being tallied. ''We're up almost 40 percent from last year,'' Garber said. Among the findings of the 2001 survey: Gays and lesbians generally earn more than their straight counterparts. ''Any minority, in order to get ahead in the U.S., usually uses education as a bootstrap to gain independence,'' said Garber. ``Good education usually goes hand-in-hand with good jobs.'' The survey also asks questions dealing with consumer categories, such as automotive and child-care. ''All this is important for mainstream advertisers to understand our community, our buying habits,'' Garber said. ``It's a Technicolor look at our community that replaces one-dimensional stereotypes.'' Business
American Airlines announced Aug. 13 that it would save millions of dollars by cutting 7,000 jobs, reducing flights and shrinking the fleet. Not a dime, though, would be cut from the airline's diversity program that courts gay travelers and supports gay workers. ''We're managing the company for the long term. That means we need to carry on on the tack of being culturally sensitive to our customers and employees,'' American spokesman Tim Kincaid said. ``It's paying off for us.'' American, AOL Time Warner, American Express and other stalwarts of corporate America have quickly realized that by unabashedly marketing themselves to gays and lesbians, they gain billions of dollars in revenue. Now, in a marketing push that barely existed 10 years ago, they are reaching out to the rainbow. Last year, American reaped more than $184 million from men and women traveling in gay groups, from gay conventions and through gay travel agencies, Kincaid said. Gay travel alone accounts for $55 billion annually, according to the Fort Lauderdale-based International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association. In South Florida, destinations like Key West and Fort Lauderdale have created entire marketing programs to bring in gay travelers. The Orlando area also markets heavily to gays and lesbians, particularly in June, during the annual (and unofficial) Gay Days at Walt Disney World. But it's not just the travel industry that's tapping into the lucrative gay market: • Television networks program gay-oriented shows, including NBC's Will & Grace, Queer As Folk on Showtime, and HBO's Oz, Six Feet Under and Sex and the City. • Newspapers, including The Herald and The New York Times, accept announcements for same-sex commitment ceremonies and recognize same-sex survivors in obituaries. The Herald and other papers run regular columns for and about the gay community. • Sports teams, including the Chicago Cubs, now reach out to gay fans. (This season, the Cubs agreed to publish 10 full-page display ads in The Chicago Free Press, a gay weekly newspaper.) Women's basketball teams, including the Miami Sol, market themselves to lesbians by advertising in gay publications. • Automakers Volkswagen and Subaru and tire maker Bridgestone/Firestone now advertise in gay magazines and on websites. • Liquor brands, including Miller Lite, Cuervo and SKYY Blue, advertise heavily in gay publications and websites. South Florida-based Southern Wine & Spirits of America -- the nation's largest distributor of alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages -- raised $40,000 for the 2002 Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, becoming the festival's major sponsor. • Financial-planning and insurance companies, computer and electronics makers, and pharmaceutical firms all reach out to gays and lesbians. A John Hancock Insurance commercial in 2000, for example, featured two women bringing home an adopted baby. ''You'll make a great mom,'' one tells the other. ''So will you,'' the partner replies. ''The stigma of advertising to the gay community is gone,'' said Joe Landry, publisher of The Advocate and Out, two magazines for gay men and women. ``The audience is affluent and brand loyal and has the propensity to purchase luxury goods.'' COMMUNITY RESPONSE And the gay community is ''sensitive and responsive to outreach,'' said Kincaid, who co-founded American Airline's Resource Group for Gay, Lesbian, Transsexual and Bisexual Employees in 1993. American was one of the first major U.S. companies to offer domestic-partner benefits to gay employees and a guarantee that they would not be discriminated against at work. Two weeks ago, the gay-oriented Human Rights Campaign ranked the airline among the best U.S. corporations for gay employees. Kincaid said that although the airline has had some resistance to its diversity campaign, it will carry on. ''There's a good business case for doing it,'' he said. ``It's the right thing to do, especially now, when we need all the business we can get.'' Landry, meanwhile, has been in position to see great changes in both publications and the marketplace over the past decade. First, the biweekly Advocate changed from newsprint to glossy paper and dumped all sexually explicit ads. TV IN THE FOREFRONT Television has often led the way in the marketing revolution. In 1994, Ellen debuted on ABC. With much publicity, both star Ellen DeGeneres and her sexually ambiguous character came out of the closet in 1997. And on the night of Ellen's coming-out party, Volkswagen ran an intriguing commercial featuring two young men driving a Golf hatchback. The pair stop to pick up a chair discarded at the curb. Michael Wilke, who runs a website called the Commercial Closet ( www.commercialcloset.org), calls the ad ``gay vague.'' ''Many people turned to each other and said, `What's going on here? Are they a gay couple?','' Wilke said. ``Generally, straight people who watch the ad presume they are roommates; gay people who watch the ad presume they are a couple.'' In 1998, NBC debuted Will & Grace, a sitcom about a gay man, his straight female roommate and their best friend, Jack, a flamboyant queen. ''Everything changed after Will & Grace,'' Landry said. ``People could see gay people on TV. It was not so strange or foreign as it was before that.'' The success of Will & Grace was particularly important following the failure of Ellen the season before, Wilke said. ''It proved that this subject could be popular in mainstream popular television,'' Wilke said. ``Had it not come along, the effect of media on a larger scale would have been slower to become comfortable with this concept. People found that if you do it right, it will work.'' As mainstream advertisers bought time on Will & Grace, they also began buying print ads in The Advocate and Out. ''When I realized the world had changed, IBM came in, American Express came in,'' Landry said. ``When it really hit me was when we got Mentadent toothpaste. I thought, `Wow, they realize gay people brush their teeth.' 'That's when I said, `OK, I'll not be surprised anymore.' It was a cultural shift in corporate America.'' A MAJOR DEAL Automakers SAAB, Saturn and Subaru began to advertise in Landry's magazines five years ago. Last week, The Advocate and Out closed a deal with Land Rover, he said. ''We are one of the few bridges between the mainstream marketing community and the gay community,'' Landry said. ``If you want to effectively target this audience, we have the connections.'' Each issue of The Advocate has a paid circulation of 103,129, up from 94,916 a year ago. Out magazine has a paid monthly circulation of 114,885, compared to 100,354 a year ago. Gay-oriented websites PlanetOut and Gay.com have two million to three million unique monthly visitors, according to Wilke. To reach the gay market cost-effectively, it makes more sense for businesses to buy space in gay-oriented magazines or websites than to make mainstream media buys. ''It's a matter of efficiency. If they're only trying to reach a gay audience, television is not an efficient medium to do that,'' Wilke said. ``If 10 percent of your audience is thought to be gay, then 90 percent of the money you've spent is wasted.'' That's especially relevant if a company produces ads specifically targeting gays and lesbians. Some mainstream companies that advertise in The Advocate and Out design gay-specific ads featuring same-sex couples and gay-associated emblems, like rainbow colors. ''Just the fact they are in the magazines in the first place is testament that the advertising is speaking to them personally, which speaks volumes for itself,'' Landry said. Most important is the sincerity of the advertiser, said Robert Witeck, a founding partner of Witeck-Combs Communications. The Washington, D.C., public-relations firm specializes in reaching the gay market. TALKING ABOUT `ME'? 'All of a sudden you think, `Maybe they do mean me,' '' said Witeck, who advises clients -- including IBM and Ford Motor Co. -- to treat gay consumers ``normally, not in the pandering sense but so that it has an authenticity about it.'' 'IBM has done ads for The Advocate using male couples. It's the same campaign [as in mainstream publications], but they did a `pop-and-pop' campaign instead of ''mom-and-pop,''' Witeck said. Among the current ads in gay magazines: • ''You're among friends,'' boasts an ad for Key West, ''the fabulous gay & lesbian destination.'' The ad features two male dolls lying beside each other on a sandy beach. • ''Threesome -- My Man, My Beer, My Miller Time. More than friends.'' It features two affectionate men and a bottle of Miller Lite. Jeffrey Garber of OpusComm Group, a Syracuse, N.Y., ad agency, believes that gay consumers prefer advertising tailored to them. ''Advertisers get a better return if they don't use general ads,'' said Garber, whose company specializes in gay advertising and market research. ``It's better if they are gay specific.'' Garber co-founded GL Census Partners, an Internet-based study ( www.glcensus.org) designed to poll gays and lesbians about their education, jobs, spending practices and politics. The purpose of the study? To help sell mainstream companies on the idea of marketing to the gay community. ''When I started calling on corporate America, they were all very interested, but they wanted to know if we could qualify and quantify [gay spending],'' Garber said. ''People do seek out advertisers who are gay friendly,'' said Amy Falkner, a Syracuse University advertising assistant professor who conducted the survey with Garber. It's important to consumers, she said, that companies be direct in their gay ads. 'People want marketers to be out themselves, not to do `gay vague' ads,'' Falkner said. ``They want whoever is going to advertise to them not to be ashamed of advertising to them.'' Consumers also care about how companies treat nonheterosexual employees, according to Garber and Falkner, who are gay. ''Do they treat their own employees well who are gay? Are they pursuing the gay community, and how are they trying to pursue it? You need to approach the market for the long-term relationship'' Garber said. Bridgestone/Firestone's North American tire division is attempting to do just that. `OVERALL DIVERSITY' ''We began a real push in our overall diversity marketing efforts: gay and lesbian, African-American, Asian and Hispanic markets,'' said Phil Pacsi, Bridgestone/Firestone executive director for North American consumer brand marketing. ``We are very, very pleased with the success we've had with our diversity efforts.'' Bridgestone/Firestone has developed a series of print and online ads using same-sex couples of men and women. ''I generally believe, from a marketing standpoint, that you can reach a larger number of people with a focused effort,'' said Michael Fluck, the tire maker's Internet and diversity marketing manager for North America. Giving gifts to gay organizations is another way of reaching out to the market. This year, for example, Southern Wine & Spirits of America moved ahead with a campaign to tap into South Florida's large gay marketplace. ''It's certainly an important segment of our community,'' said Richard Booth Jr., Southern Wine & Spirits' South Florida vice president and general manager. ``The gay community loves to drink premium wine and spirits, and they're very loyal customers.'' Booth said it would be foolish to overlook the market. ''It's definitely a business decision,'' he said, ``but it also comes from our heart. We're a very philanthropic company and involved in the community.'' In addition to raising $40,000 for the Miami Gay & Lesbian Film Festival this year, Southern Wine & Spirits gave donations to several South Florida gay and AIDS-related charities: the Food for Life Network; Care Resource's annual White Party at Viscaya; the Episcopal AIDS Ministry; and the Dade Human Rights Foundation, which grants hundreds of thousands of dollars to other gay organizations. The annual DHRF fundraising dinner will be on Oct. 19 at the Westin Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood. The recipient of this year's Humanitarian Award (sponsored by The Herald) will be Lee Brian Schrager -- national director of media and special events for Southern Wine & Spirits. ''I'm fortunate to work for a company that not only supports the gay community but supports me for supporting the gay community,'' said Schrager, one of South Florida's best-known catering managers. Schrager has been with Southern Wine & Spirits for three years. But even before he joined the wine and spirits distributor, he says, the company was supportive of the gay community. ''When I started up the Friends of the White Party Committee, the owners of Southern sent the first check, '' Schrager said. He said his bosses tell him: ``If it's the right thing, if it's good for the community, if it's good for our brands, let's do it. ''More important than the dollar figure, often times having the name of a major player behind you . . . you cannot put a price on that,'' Schrager said. ``It opens a lot of eyes.''
Ellen, you've come a long way, baby. When the title character of the ABC sitcom Ellen came out a few years ago, it made front-page news and drove some of the show's advertisers to pull their commercials. Now the Viacom-owned networks MTV and Showtime are developing a gay- and lesbian-themed cable network, hoping to tap into an audience that was, until very recently, taboo with American marketers. So if a single show couldn't make it, what makes these programming executives think an entire network devoted to this niche audience will fly? "The economics of this are totally different," says Wilkofsky Gruen Associates media economist Arthur Gruen. "Network shows need ratings of 9 or 10, whereas you don't need anywhere near that kind of audience reach to make a cable network work." Most cable channels draw ratings of less than a 1. Viacom (nyse: VIA.B - news - people) says the gay channel will be supported by a mix of advertising and subscription fees, which may run from $5 to $7 a month. "Niche audiences are definitely willing to pay for programming that they can't get elsewhere," says Gruen. No launch date for the gay network has been scheduled, but Interpublic Group chief of business development Barry Linsky expects there will be an advertising market for it when it does. "The public is more accepting of alternative lifestyles," he says, "so marketers are more comfortable reaching out to these markets." The NBC (nyse: GE - news - people) hit Will and Grace, for instance, hasn't been lacking for advertisers and has, in fact, become a key draw for the network's Thursday night "must-see TV" lineup. Advertising in alternative lifestyle outlets, which, until this point, has primarily been in magazines like Out and The Advocate, is generally considered another way to reach people that are also part of the mass-market audience, says Linsky. "But niche advertising is a way for the marketer to demonstrate to the audience that it is attuned to that audience's particular needs." And it's a market well worth catering to. Median income for the households of gay couples is $65,000, compared with a 1999 U.S. median income of $40,800, according to a study by the OpusComm Group in conjunction with Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications and This new marketing opportunity presents itself at a time when advertisers have been pulling back on mass-market ad spending and, instead, experimenting by trying to reach more focused targets. Viacom has an excellent track record of launching other successful niche cable networks, like VH1 and Nickelodeon, but this market is much smaller--by orders of magnitude--than the ones for music or children's programming. Indeed, there are only an estimated 15 million or so gay Americans, so this channel will have a substantially smaller pool of viewers to draw from. And there is, of course, very little gay programming .
Same-sex marriage top priority for gays. Priorities of the gay rights, movement and percentage who ranked each highest: The breakdown: • 47% Legal recognition of same-sex marriages for tax, estate and insurance purposes
*GLCensus is a Syracuse University, OpusComm Group and GSociety Partnership
Marriage law becomes gay priority
By Deb Price / The Detroit News A wonderful development in Connecticut hints at a dramatic change in the mind-set of the gay rights movement: Same-sex marriage -- considered by most gay people to be all but impossible to ever achieve only a decade ago -- is now widely viewed as both achievable and necessary to our fight to become equal citizens.
Deb Price's column is published on Monday. You can contact her at (202) 662-7370 or dprice@detnews.com. Showtime's Queer as Folk has been chosen the top show featuring gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered characters in a nationwide online poll of self-identified GLBT respondents conducted by Zogby International and GLCensus (a Syracuse University, OpusComm Group, and GSociety Partnership), the group announced on Monday. Queer as Folk was chosen the favorite by 39% of the respondents. NBC's Will & Grace came in second with 22%, and NBC's ER was third with 10% of the first-place votes. Other shows receiving significant votes included HBO's Six Feet Under (8%), the WB's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (6%), and CBS's The Ellen Show (3%). The online poll included 1,931 U.S. residents who identified themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trangendered and was conducted February 18-21. While QAF was named favorite show, its lead character, Brian Kinney, played by Gale Harold, was voted the GLBT character portrayed most negatively. His character was followed by Sean Hayes's portrayal of Jack McFarland on Will & Grace and ER's Dr. Kerry Weaver, played by Laura Innes. "It's not surprising that Showtime's Queer as Folk came out as the favorite GLBT show despite the lead character, Brian Kinney, being voted as portraying the most negative GLBT character," said Jeff Garber of OpusComm Group in a statement. "I think the bigger surprise to the general public, but not the GLBT community, is that NBC's Will & Grace's Jack McFarland was perceived the second most negatively portrayed GLBT main character. To the general public, the character Jack is one of the most favorite for his 'over the top' performance. However, the GLBT community probably feels that McFarland's portrayal of Jack, although funny, perpetuates negative stereotypes [because he is] an unemployed, shallow man who lives off the good graces of his friends." Eric McCormack's portrayal of Will Truman on Will & Grace was named GLBT character most positively portrayed, with Ellen DeGeneres's character, Ellen, and Hal Sparks's portrayal of Michael Novotny on Queer as Folk in a virtual tie for second. Scott Seomin, entertainment media director for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said, "Eric McCormack's portrayal of Will Truman is a revelation. This is one of the few examples of a straight actor playing gay with honesty and integrity. He does do the best job in portraying a gay man currently on television, and he deserves our community's thanks." Among GLBT supporting characters, the favorite was Emmett Honeycutt (Peter Paige) of Queer as Folk; the least favorite, Mr. Garrison of South Park. Lindsay Peterson (Thea Gill) of Queer as Folk was chosen as representing the most positive portrayal of a GLTB supporting character, while Mr. Garrison was voted the worst portrayal. "Lesbian portrayals on prime time are beloved by the gay and lesbian community," said Seomin. "Characters such as Dr. Weaver and Lindsay Peterson are popular and scarce. Lesbian representation on television is so sparse, in fact, that our community seeks out these characters and holds them dear." Respondents were also asked to rate the portrayal of GLBT characters in several shows on a scale of very accurate, somewhat accurate, somewhat inaccurate, and very inaccurate. Over one third (35%) of respondents chose Queer as Folk as very accurate, followed by ER (26%) and Will & Grace (26%). No show was clearly labeled as very inaccurate, although Son of a Beach led the category with 7% of the vote. The least favorite show that features a GLBT character is Comedy Central's South Park, chosen by 18% of the respondents. Garber said the poll is probably summed up best from one of the comments from a poll respondent: "Gay people are so diverse, one show could not possibly accurately describe a gay person or the gay culture." Back to Top USA TODAY February 22, 2002 -FRONT PAGE
Poll: Government won't help surviving same-sex partners Most gays and lesbians polled say they don't expect the U.S. government to help same-sex survivors The breakdown: • 75% "Won't provide for needs to same-sex survivors"
Back to Top Advertisers seen welcoming gay-oriented TV network By Bill Berkrot NEW YORK (Reuters) - ``Ellen'' who? Just four years after shunning the first prime-time TV show starring an openly gay character, some of the nation's top advertisers could soon be lining up to sponsor an entire network aimed at gays and lesbians, who are increasingly seen as a lucrative niche market, according to industry analysts. MTV Networks and Showtime, both units of media giant Viacom Inc , have been developing the gay- and lesbian-oriented network since last summer, though programming details are still in the works and no timetable has been set for the channel's debut. News of the project led some analysts to predict that such a channel will be welcomed by advertisers looking for new niche markets to tap. ``Everyone who wants a new market will jump on the bandwagon,'' predicted Jeff Garber, president of OpusComm Group Inc., an advertising and public relations firm that targets the gay and lesbian audience for mainstream advertisers. Demographers said the channel will have an audience with deeper pockets than the average American. In a 2000 study, Kalorama Information market research firm estimated a total gay and lesbian purchasing power in the United States of $340 billion in 1999. A recent consumer online survey found the median combined household income of gay couples to be $65,000, nearly 60 percent higher than the 1999 U.S. median income of $40,800. In the survey conducted last summer by OpusComm and GSociety Inc., in conjunction with the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University, more than 20 percent of the 6,351 respondents reported a total combined income of $100,000 or more -- figures likely to have advertisers scrambling for a share of the gay dollar, analysts said. Garber said he expects to see clear changes in the way the gay population is courted, ``as the gay and lesbian economic power base becomes more widely recognized.'' In 1997, major advertisers such as Domino's Pizza, Burger King Corp. and Johnson & Johnson, temporarily withdrew their sponsorship of ABC's ``Ellen'' when, in a groundbreaking episode, the main character played by openly gay actress Ellen DeGeneres revealed she was a lesbian. Since then, however, gay and lesbian characters have cropped up on numerous shows on both broadcast and cable networks, with little or no backlash from major sponsors. ``Over the last 10 years we've seen a dramatic increase in the desire of advertisers to market to this audience,'' said Howard Buford, founder and CEO of Prime Access Inc., an advertising and marketing company specializing in gay and lesbian and other defined audiences. ``They're finding out that there is a large amount of disposable income out there.'' SAME-SEX SELLS When the new network debuts, it will join Toronto-based PrideVision TV, the world's first 24-hour gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender television network, which was launched last Sept. 7. Jason Hughes, director of sales for PrideVision TV, said most sponsors the network approaches are receptive. Diet Pepsi, Microsoft, Warner Music, Polar Ice Vodka and Rogers AT&T Canada are already running their existing advertising on the groundbreaking station. But Hughes said a company that makes herbal products and a clothing company were in process of producing commercials designed specifically for the gay audience, a trend he expects to increase. He declined to name the companies. ``When they see two men holding hands or two women kissing in a commercial, the community is going to respond to that,'' Hughes said. ``The community knows who supports them.'' Cathy Renna, news media director for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (news - web sites) (GLAAD) said the gay community is well informed about companies deemed friendly to gays. ``We support corporations that support the community,'' Renna said, citing American Airlines as a prime example of a company that has helped the gay community. ``It's the right thing to do, and it's a really smart business decision.'' Reuters/Variety Back to Top Breakthrough in Gay Consumerism A live press conference with a simulcast on an interactive web site, will be held 2:00 p.m. EST, July 9, 2001 to announce tthe commencement of a major university study being conducted on Gay/Lesbian consumerism and the effect it now has on mainstream marketing. The press conference will take place at Syracuse University, whose S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, in conjunction with OpusComm Group, Inc. and GSociety, Inc., are conducting this worldwide study of the Gay/Lesbian Community. "This is the largest, most ambitious research done to date, and we are thrilled that a major, well-respected leader in research, such is Syracuse University, has partnered with us and GSociety to undertake this high profile study," says Jeffrey Garber, president of OpusComm Group, Inc. "It is a subject that has been widely overlooked in the past, and mainstream business can no longer afford to ignore the Gay/Lesbian Community and stay competitive in an oncoming economic turndown." Speaking at the press conference will be Garber, Cary Gilbert, Director of Sales for GSociety, Inc. and David Rubin, Dean of S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications Syracuse University. Shaw, along with the 16-member board of trustees executive committee, most recently demonstrated the University’s anti-discrimination policy by refusing the Boy Scouts of America’s their catering service for their annual Boypower Dinner, a major fundraiser held there for 17 of the past 18 years. This decision came on the heels of the Boy Scouts policy disallowing openly gay adult leaders. For further information on attending the press conference or to receive a press kit, call OpusComm Group, Inc. at (315) 637-20180. To view the Internet simulcast and participate in the interactive question and answer session, log onto www.opuscommgroup.com at 2:00 p.m., July 9, 2001. Copyright 2001, gSociety. All rights reserved. As mainstream advertisers begin dipping toes into the Gay/Lesbian oriented marketing pool, many of them unknowingly perpetuate the myths and misconceptions of homosexuality and the "lifestyle" assumptions that straight society is comfortable with. While these advertisers have the best intentions, what needs to be addressed is why these good intentions are, in some cases, paving a rainbow road to hell. Unfortunately, many of these campaigns are blindly conceived and executed, often running the risk of alienating their targeted customer. While the Gay/Lesbian consumer dollar has become a hot commodity among many industries, the fact still remains that advertisers, and their agencies, lack the knowledge of how to appeal to the Community. Many who have portrayed Gays and Lesbians in mainstream electronic and print media have used typical societal stereotypes and humor, entrenched in the idea that targeting them this way automatically creates brand loyalty. So why isn't it working? What is often lacking is the intelligence in the message itself. Just as a bikini-clad female spread across the hood of a high performance car doesn't send women flocking to the auto dealer, putting two men on a beach drinking a certain brand of beer and holding hands isn't going to create a deluge of Gay men at the coolers of convenience stores. With proper guidance, perhaps the image of two men having that beer after building a swing set for their children in the hot sun would be much more compelling. The subtle, sensitive message, while still open to interpretation as most advertising is, speaks loudly. So how can the Community help diffuse the myths? Since many companies have begun targeting Gays and Lesbians in mainstream media, much of the Community has accepted a compromise: It doesn't matter what they say, as long as they spell your name right. Is it just an attempt at enticement while still smacking of middle American social acceptance? Maybe advertisers just don't know how to do it right. Perhaps now that the "closet door" is open, the Community needs to pick up the ball and run with it. In fact, one Gay-owned advertising/PR agency has chosen, after 16 years of working with Fortune 500 mainstream advertisers, to specialize in serving as a conduit between the Gay/Lesbian Community and their clients. "Mainstream corporations have been aware of this niche market for sometime," says Jeffrey Garber, president of OpusComm Group, Inc. "They have mainly targeted Gay publications, as not to risk offending mainstream middle America. While these publications are important, they don't cross over to mass media and may be missing a large percentage of the target market. A few have taken the next step by putting Gays and Lesbians in their campaigns, but usually as the butt of a joke. You have to understand though, this, as television has taught them, is what "sells". Mainstream viewers love and accept the Cher-loving "Just Jack", and Friend's Chandler's cross-dressing, gay father because they are not to be taken seriously. "But to truly reach out to the Gay/Lesbian market, the right message needs to be that the Community is taken seriously. This is done by sensitively addressing pertinent issues the same way you would if you were targeting, say, the African-American market." OpusComm Group, Inc. has partnered with Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and GSociety, Inc. to conduct the first grand-scale accredited research into the consumer habits of the worldwide Gay/Lesbian community to educate mainstream advertisers in the delivery of a positive message to this unique niche market. The 2001 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Census is the first major worldwide study conducted by a university recognized as a leader in academic research. The Census will be conducted online from July 9th-August 9th, 2001 at GLCensus.com. The research itself, conducted by a team of researchers led by Professor Amy Falkner of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, looks to reach beyond the scope of the U.S. Government 2000 Census. "The U.S. Census requires people to be "out" and partnered to participate and not everyone is ready to run down the street with a rainbow flag and let the government know their details. The anonymity of the Internet will solve this problem and hopefully inspire participation so we can get a more complete picture of the Gay/Lesbian Community, including singles and couples, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world," says Falkner. "On a personal level, as a lesbian and a mother, I am interested in an undertaking such as this which recognizes the depth, and I suspect, the variety of the Gay/Lesbian audience. Misconceptions about this audience abound. There is much political debate that revolves around the lifestyles of the Gay/Lesbian Community and we think this research could frame those discussions in a more accurate light. Better understanding will result in more informed discussion." With web sites such as GayWired.com and LesbianNation.com in their family of companies, partner GSociety, Inc. also believes there is much lacking in the way of knowledge available to advertisers in targeting the Community. "We need to know whether our community's first identity is Gay/Lesbian, " says Cary Gilbert, Director of Sales for the largest Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Company. "For example, does an African-American Gay male identify as African-American and then gay, or gay and then African-American? The answers to questions like this will dramatically affect future marketing campaigns." "GSociety recognizes the tremendous need for academic research on Gay and Lesbian consumer habits. Many studies have been conducted with a bias towards their outcome. With Syracuse University, we can be assured that the results will be clinical and objective. Society at large wants and needs to know this information, and we are excited to be a part of this groundbreaking effort," says Gilbert. Garber adds, "this is an excellent opportunity for the Gay/Lesbian Community to not only have a voice, but a strong voice. And we're listening." To be an anonymous participant in the survey, log onto GLCensus.com. On the site is a place to register for a personal copy of the synopsis of the results, and to win a trip to New York City or Los Angeles, including air, hotel and other amenities. © 2001 LesbiaNation; All Rights Reserved. As mainstream advertisers begin dipping toes into the Gay/Lesbian oriented marketing pool, many of them unknowingly perpetuate the myths and misconceptions of homosexuality and the “lifestyle” assumptions that straight society is comfortable with. While these advertisers have the best intentions, what needs to be addressed is why these good intentions are, in some cases, paving a rainbow road to hell. Unfortunately, many of these campaigns are blindly conceived and executed, often running the risk of alienating their targeted customer. While the Gay/Lesbian consumer dollar has become a hot commodity among many industries, the fact still remains that advertisers, and their agencies, lack the knowledge of how to appeal to the Community. Many who have portrayed Gays and Lesbians in mainstream electronic and print media have used typical societal stereotypes and humor, entrenched in the idea that targeting them this way automatically creates brand loyalty. So why isn’t it working? What is often lacking is the intelligence in the message itself. Just as a bikini-clad female spread across the hood of a high performance car doesn’t send women flocking to the auto dealer, putting two men on a beach drinking a certain brand of beer and holding hands isn’t going to create a deluge of Gay men at the coolers of convenience stores. With proper guidance, perhaps the image of two men having that beer after building a swing set for their children in the hot sun would be much more compelling. The subtle, sensitive message, while still open to interpretation as most advertising is, speaks loudly. So how can the Community help diffuse the myths? Since many companies have begun targeting Gays and Lesbians in mainstream media, much of the Community has accepted a compromise: It doesn’t matter what they say, as long as they spell your name right. Is it just an attempt at enticement while still smacking of middle American social acceptance? Maybe advertisers just don’t know how to do it right. Perhaps now that the “closet door” is open, the Community needs to pick up the ball and run with it. In fact, one Gay-owned advertising/PR agency has chosen, after 16 years of working with Fortune 500 mainstream advertisers, to specialize in serving as a conduit between the Gay/Lesbian Community and their clients. “Mainstream corporations have been aware of this niche market for sometime,” says Jeffrey Garber, president of OpusComm Group, Inc. “They have mainly targeted Gay publications, as not to risk offending mainstream middle America. While these publications are important, they don’t cross over to mass media and may be missing a large percentage of the target market. A few have taken the next step by putting Gays and Lesbians in their campaigns, but usually as the butt of a joke. You have to understand though, this, as television has taught them, is what “sells”. Mainstream viewers love and accept the Cher-loving “Just Jack”, and Friend's Chandler’s cross-dressing, gay father because they are not to be taken seriously. “But to truly reach out to the Gay/Lesbian market, the right message needs to be that the Community is taken seriously. This is done by sensitively addressing pertinent issues the same way you would if you were targeting, say, the African-American market.” OpusComm Group, Inc. has partnered with Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and GSociety, Inc. to conduct the first grand-scale accredited research into the consumer habits of the worldwide Gay/Lesbian community to educate mainstream advertisers in the delivery of a positive message to this unique niche market. The 2001 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Census is the first major worldwide study conducted by a university recognized as a leader in academic research. The Census will be conducted online from July 9th – August 9th, 2001 at glcensus.com The research itself, conducted by a team of researchers led by Professor Amy Falkner of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, looks to reach beyond the scope of the U.S. Government 2000 Census. “The U.S. Census requires people to be “out” and partnered to participate and not everyone is ready to run down the street with a rainbow flag and let the government know their details. The anonymity of the Internet will solve this problem and hopefully inspire participation so we can get a more complete picture of the Gay/Lesbian Community, including singles and couples, both in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world,” says Falkner. “On a personal level, as a lesbian and a mother, I am interested in an undertaking such as this which recognizes the depth, and I suspect, the variety of the Gay/Lesbian audience. Misconceptions about this audience abound. There is much political debate that revolves around the lifestyles of the Gay/Lesbian Community and we think this research could frame those discussions in a more accurate light. Better understanding will result in more informed discussion.” With web sites such as GayWired.com and LesbianNation.com in their family of companies, partner GSociety, Inc. also believes there is much lacking in the way of knowledge available to advertisers in targeting the Community. “We need to know whether our community’s first identity is Gay/Lesbian, “ says Cary Gilbert, Director of Sales for the largest Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Company. “For example, does an African-American Gay male identify as African-American and then gay, or gay and then African-American? The answers to questions like this will dramatically affect future marketing campaigns.” “GSociety recognizes the tremendous need for academic research on Gay and Lesbian consumer habits. Many studies have been conducted with a bias towards their outcome. With Syracuse University, we can be assured that the results will be clinical and objective. Society at large wants and needs to know this information, and we are excited to be a part of this groundbreaking effort,” says Gilbert. Garber adds, “this is an excellent opportunity for the Gay/Lesbian Community to not only have a voice, but a strong voice. And we’re listening.” Stand Up and Be Counted Syracuse, New York – July 9, 2001 – Mainstream advertisers and ad agencies are reaching out to the gay/lesbian community for participation in the first online 2001 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census taking place through August 20th, 2001. The Census is the first grand-scale research into the consumer habits of the worldwide Gay/Lesbian community to be conducted by a leading university (Syracuse University), in an effort to become a tool to educate mainstream advertisers who don’t have a clear handle on the power of the Gay/Lesbian consumer, a unique niche market. Gays and Lesbians are encouraged to not only “Stand Up and Be Counted”, but spread the word through the rest of the Community – one whose consumer clout has widely been ignored in the past - and share the opportunity to get pertinent information to advertisers and marketers about positive print and electronic media issues. To be an anonymous participant in the survey, log onto www.glcensus.org. On the site is a place to register for a personal copy of the synopsis of the results, and to win a trip to New York City or Los Angeles, including air, hotel and other amenities. The Census is the combined effort of three partners: OpusComm Group, Inc., a gay-owned advertising/PR agency with over sixteen years mainstream experience, now specializing in consultation of sensitivity issues and market plan development for all types of advertisers targeting the Gay/Lesbian Community in the mainstream media. The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, one of the world’s leading academic and research institutions in the field of communications, which is leading the development and result analysis of the Census. GSociety, Inc., a media/entertainment company whose reach and distribution channels target gays and lesbians around the world, featuring powerful e-commerce and travel services. The company’s Internet portals feature GayWired.com and LesbianNation.com. For further information on the 2001 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census contact OpusComm Group, Inc. at (315)422-6250 or at www.opuscommgroup.com. Copyright 2001, gSociety. All rights reserved. A gentle breeze is blowing through the palms, and the autumn sun glistens against waves. It's a postcard-perfect afternoon along Fort Lauderdale's beach, or at least it should be. Only small clusters of people are scattered across the beach from the Spring Break haunts near Las Olas Boulevard past the restaurants and hotels up State Road A1A, bad news for an area so beholden to tourism. The one exception is at Sebastian Street, a mecca for gays in search of sun, sand and surf. The strip of beach around the lifeguard stand is packed with throngs of men in body-hugging Speedos. The telltale signs of tourists are everywhere here -- accents, talk of vacation plans, and of course, that pale white skin in desperate need of a tan. Gay tourism is the one part of the area's travel industry unscathed by the terrorist attacks on the nation two months ago. While major hotels throughout Broward County struggle to fill their rooms and persuade people it's safe to travel again, gay resorts and guesthouses remain packed. The resiliency of gay travel coupled with the handful of conventions since Sept. 11 are all that have prevented the collapse of the area's tourism market, according to county tourism officials. "Sure I was shell-shocked after the 11th, but then I said, `No, I'm going to do this,'" said Richard Gullion, a church music director from Cleveland who celebrated his 37th birthday earlier this month at one of Fort Lauderdale's gay guesthouses. "People are reluctant to travel, but you have to do it at some point." Overall hotel occupancy in Broward is down 17 percent from last year, and it's not expected to get better soon. Reservations for the holidays and for the prime tourism period of January through March are expected to be 15 percent lower. Business as usual The solid performances posted at the gay resorts, though, show no signs of letting up. Many are already booked for the holidays. The Coral Reef Guesthouse reports October business was up 38 percent, and its November reservations are already ahead of last year's by the same percent. At the Royal Palms, the owner sent one customer planning a Thanksgiving vacation to the nearby Worthington because he was sold out. And while mainstream hotels are offering huge discounts and are rolling back 2002 rate increases to entice customers, the gay resorts are sticking with their pricing plans. Coral Reef and Venice Beach Guest Quarters also are moving ahead with expansion plans. Bill Barnish, co-owner of the Cabanas Guesthouse in Wilton Manors, was worried in the days following the September attack. Cabanas opened last year and had not built the continued patronage that rival resorts have, so he did not know what his fate would be. But December is 90 percent full and Christmas is booked completely. "People know Fort Lauderdale," Barnish said. "It says it all in its name. People feel safe coming here." `The gay dollar' Nicki Grossman, president of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, said the drawing power of the gay resorts has prevented Broward's tourism base from suffering a much more sweeping downturn on the scale seen statewide. Hotel occupancy across Florida is down 40 percent, she said. Owners of the gay resorts credit their stability to a variety of cultural factors. Most gays and lesbians do not have children and may not share the same degree of concern about travel that parents with small children would have. The hoteliers also said many of their customers are savvy travelers because they do it so frequently and have solid incomes so they can weather tight economic times. "The gay dollar is strong and always has been," said Jason Smith, owner of the Worthington. "Everyone felt the impact of Sept. 11, but it is not going to stop gay tourism." Jeff Garber, president of OpusComm Group, a New York-based company that specializes in marketing to the gay community, said the differences between gay travel and the overall market also relate to an expanded sense of family within the gay community. As many people turn to their immediate family in a time of crisis, gays may rely on a broader sense of family that includes being with friends and in a community where they feel most comfortable, he said. Fort Lauderdale has increasingly become viewed as one of the nation's leading gay resort destinations. There are more than 30 hotels catering to the gay and lesbian market, and the hotel industry estimates that 555,000 gay and lesbian tourists visited the area last year and spent more than $500 million. Most of the gay-oriented hotels are small, guesthouse-style places. Prices can range up to more than $250 a night for a room during the winter season, and their locations are scattered across Fort Lauderdale's beach and from Wilton Manors to Dania Beach. Division across nation The split between the gay and straight tourism market is being seen nationally. A survey by the gay travel magazine Out & About said 87 percent of its respondents had traveled since Sept. 11 or planned to do so soon. Another survey by Passport magazine found that 94 percent said they intended to stick with travel plans despite current events. The healthy state of Fort Lauderdale's gay tourism comes despite only a minimal increase in county marketing directly targeted toward gays and lesbians. There's been nothing similar to the parade that accompanied this month's pilots convention or the jazz band that greeted travelers at the airport a month ago. Marketing efforts About $1,000 of the $500,000 that county commissioners gave tourism officials for additional advertising after Sept. 11 has gone to buy ads in gay publications. Overall, about $200,000 of Broward's $2 million tourism advertising budget is spent in the gay market and is partially paid for by the hoteliers. The visitors bureau's Rolling out the Rainbow Carpet ad campaign runs in national gay publications such as the Advocate as well as regional papers and magazines. Grossman has faced pressure from the County Commission to increase the amount of money she spends in publications and radio stations geared to blacks, but she has not been pushed to spend more to lure gay tourists. Grossman said she prefers to direct the extra ad dollars at reinvigorating the broader market. Others question that strategy. Fort Lauderdale has the most significant and concerted travel ad campaign in the gay weekly papers published across the nation by Window Media, according to its advertising sales director, Peter Jackson. But he said he expects others will follow suit. Natural attractions The latest issue of the Advocate featured a two-page color ad for Key West. Two weeks earlier, the magazine had major ads for the French coast, the Aspen Gay & Lesbian Ski Weekend in Colorado and all-gay cruise offerings from the Atlantis and Olivia travel companies in addition to a full-page ad for Fort Lauderdale. OpusComm Group's Garber said he doubts if any marketing effort can change people's attitudes about flying and travel. Marketing money can better be spent on drawing more of those who are willing to travel, he said. Owners of Fort Lauderdale's gay resorts, though, said they are satisfied with the marketing effort. The area's beach, nightlife and gay-friendly atmosphere will draw their crowds so the county should focus on selling the area in general, they said. "Most gay people are not going to sit back," said Jeff Boss, co-owner of the Coral Reef Guesthouse. "We have the ability to jumpstart the economy because we can pick up and go." Scott Wyman can be reached at swyman@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4511. Gays More Affluent, More Likely to Vote Than Other Americans, Survey Says By MATTHEW VALIA Gays and lesbians are more affluent and more likely to vote than heterosexual Americans, according to a new online poll. The online survey, a Syracuse University, OpusComm Group, GSociety Study which polled 6,351 respondents in July and August, also profiled gay and lesbian entertainment spending as well as trends in occupations and self-identification in terms of race and sexual orientation. Nearly nine of 10 respondents reported they were registered voters, the study concluded and 79.8 percent said they voted in the 2000 presidential election, compared to the national average of 51.2 percent, according to Curtis Gans, director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. "We are seeing among our respondents significantly more registered voters and a higher voter turnout in the gay and lesbian population than in the U.S. population as a whole," said Jeff Garber, president of OpusComm, the Syracuse N.Y-based public relations firm that partnered the study. "I think we will find more and more political figures going for the vote," said Amy Falkner, professor of advertising at the Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Communication. "Judging from these numbers, it’s advantageous to the candidate to be gay-friendly these days." Following the voting trend, the poll also showed the income of gays and lesbians was higher then the national average. The median combined income of self-identified gay couples reported was $65,000, nearly 60 percent higher than the national average of $42,148, according to 2000 census data. With a higher purchasing power than the average American household, the gay and lesbian population represents an important emerging market that companies and corporations need to seek, Garber said. "Money talks, the same in politics as in business," Garber said. "As the gay and lesbian economic power base becomes more widely recognized, we are sure to see many subtle and not-so-subtle changes in the way the gay population is courted." "A few major corporations are beginning to reap the rewards as pioneers in this market," Falkner said. Gay and lesbian advertising is moving "out of the closet and into the mainstream market." Subaru and American Airlines are on the forefront of actively advertising directly to the gay and lesbian market, Garber said. Back to Top SYRACUSE - Often overlooked by mainstream advertisers, homosexual consumers now have an opportunity to show their market clout by participating in a comprehensive worldwide online survey that began Monday, researchers said. "This is a chance for gays and lesbians to provide a more accurate picture of who we are as a community and what we are all about in our many different forms," said Cathy Renna, a spokeswoman for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a nationwide media advocacy group. The 2001 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census is being conducted by Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in partnership with GSociety Inc., a media and entertainment company that operates two of the Internet's most targeted gay Web sites, GayWired.com and LesbianNation.com. "Gay and lesbian consumers are very much different from other consumers. It is a specialty market just like advertisers would gear their products toward the African-American or Hispanic market sectors," said Jeffrey S. Garber, whose marketing firm, OpusComm Group, is involved in the survey. In the last decade, a growing number of major U.S. companies have moved gay and lesbian advertising into the mainstream market as acceptance of homosexuality has grown in society and in the workplace, Renna said. "The challenge, though, is that the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender community is a diverse community that crosses class, race, gender and age lines. It has been hard to pin down," she said. Numerous other studies of homosexual consumers have been done, although most have been smaller scale, less comprehensive or more narrowly focused, said Robert Witeck of Witeck-Combs Communications, a Washington, D.C., firm that specializes in gay and lesbian marketing. Witeck cautioned that the survey still will not provide a complete picture of homosexual consumers because of the way it will be conducted. Rather than rely on pollsters contacting respondents, they must rely on gays and lesbians voluntarily submitting answers. "Nevertheless, I'm in favor of doing it because it is asking people about their backgrounds, their attitudes, their purchasing behavior," Witeck said. "We need more data. It's basic Marketing 101: Who are my customers?" The survey will cover a wide range of demographic material, as well as consumer categories such as buying preferences in the areas of cars, computers, clothing, medical needs, personal care, sports and fitness, travel and entertainment. Researchers hope to present highlights of the survey in mid-September. Back to Top Survey directed to gays, lesbians Jeffrey Garber of Syracuse started his public relations company, OpusComm, to help businesses market to the gay and lesbian community. But despite a few assumptions and bare bones facts, he found no real information existed to show the potential from this market segment. That convinced Garber, with 16 years in marketing, to team up with Syracuse University and the gay entertainment services company GSociety to create an Internet survey directed to gays and lesbians around the world. The survey is intended to question primarily wired people who consider themselves gay, whether married, single, with children or not. "We're hoping that because of the anonymity the Web provides, people who might not ordinarily participate in a survey like this will," said Beth Barnes, assistant dean for professional graduate studies at SU. The survey began this week at www.glcensus.org and will last a month. The results, due out in September, will form the 2001 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census. The survey was officially launched Monday at Syracuse University through a Webcast on the Internet, with questions e-mailed from viewers across North America. The survey's creators said it can't be considered comprehensive because it doesn't poll a random sample from a known population. But, it will provide some of the only information available to date specifically about gay consumers. "It's certainly not a random sample," Barnes said. "It's going to be, finally, some hard numbers. Better numbers than anybody's had before." Organizers think the survey will offer a glimpse of more than spending habits. They hope the survey will show real facts about the homosexual community, about income, age, demographics and areas that haven't been addressed before, such as family composition. That can help counter the gay stereotype of being childless, young, educated, wealthy and urban-dwelling. Advertisers who have tried to target a gay audience, using these stereotypes, have alienated more people than they attracted. "We're hoping it's going to be an eye-opener for everyone," Garber said. "It's exciting because it's new and about something controversial." The study is also designed to show how gays and lesbians define themselves - as gay and parents, or gay and black, or simply as gay. "The gay community has a pent up desire to communicate who they are," Garber said. "We want the community to identify (itself)." The survey slogan is "Stand up and be counted." The survey was created by Barnes and Amy P. Falkner, an assistant professor at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, who will also tabulate and study the results. "This is the first time that an academic institution has taken on this topic," said Cary Gilbert, director of GSociety. "With Syracuse University, we can be assured that the results will be clinical and objective." Respondents - who will be recorded by their ZIP code or country code if outside North America - can win prizes for completing the survey. Calling it a census reflects the shortcomings of the national U.S. census, which did not include a question about sexual orientation. "That was a bone of contention in our community," Gilbert said. The organizers hope the 500,000 visitors a month to GSociety's Web sites will link to the survey. But they can't predict how many people will respond. In addition to its Web portals, GSociety produces travel guide books and an entertainment and music network. About 500,000 visitors a month from all 50 states and 166 countries access its Web sites. Garber attributes this to the Internet's role connecting gays and lesbians who might be isolated in small towns or not public about their sexual orientation. The survey is designed with some open-ended questions to allow respondents a chance to say things in their own way. The survey also will show businesses that marketing to gays and lesbians can be done through mainstream media. "Mainstream corporations have been aware of this niche market for some time," Garber said. "They have mainly targeted gay publications, as not to risk offending mainstream middle America. While these publications are important, they don't cross over to mass media and may be missing a large percentage of the target market." In its core, the survey is designed to help businesses with marketing. "Major companies are looking for ways to increase their market share," Garber said. "They need to identify who they've overlooked as far as consumers." © 2001 The Syracuse Newspapers. Used with permission. Overlooking Gay Consumers Could Prove Costly for Top Corporations Corporate America’s marketing executives have aggressively targeted African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans, but until recently one lucrative segment has been ignored: gays and lesbians. "There has been a lot of noise during the past year and a half about this emerging market, so companies identify that there is an opportunity," said Jeff Garber, co-founder of OpusCommGroup Inc., a communications and marketing firm. "But they’re not quite sure if their product is going to appeal to the gay/lesbian segment and if so, how to market the product." Garber and co-founder Dan Fedrizzi have helped clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to non-profits tap into the gay community’s buying power, which surpassed $340 billion in 1999 and is expected to hit $444 billion by 2004, according to a study by MarketResearch.com. The Syracuse, N.Y. company has served mainstream clients for more than 15 years and now aims to act as a liaison between the gay community and the heterosexual-dominated business world. OpusCommGroup’s main goal is to devise online and offline campaigns that will help companies that haven’t been able to effectively target the gay segment. "The new challenge is to demonstrate to a major player like an American Express how to approach this unique market effectively and have substantial impact on their bottom line," Garber said. "If corporate America hears only about gay-oriented products being target marketed we are guilty of perpetuating the marketing stereotype that if you don't have a gay-specific product you don't advertise to them." Corporate America can create brand loyalty without marketing a gay-specific product, Garber said. "Arm and Hammer Baking Soda has reinvented multiple uses for the product, but the product has remained the same," he said. "They came up with new applications for the same product. That is the key." Most gays and lesbians will go out of their way to buy products that advertise to their niche, Garber said. ©2001 DiversityInc.com From The Advocate, November 16, 2001 Census 2000 may have gathered information on self-identified same-sex partners, but a broader picture of gay and lesbian citizens remains elusive—except when it comes to their profiles as consumers. The latest comprehensive data on these consumers comes from a joint study by marketing firms and Syracuse University, and its results both confirm some previous assumptions and reveal a remarkable trend toward “nesting”—individuals having partners or children. Jeff Garber, president of marketing company OpusComm—which cosponsored the study with the gay Web company GSociety—says marketing is itself a form of activism: “Having our presence acknowledged in advertising campaigns has increased awareness and promoted more acceptance [of gay people] in society at large.” He added, “It’s a win-win situation if advertisers can create advertising [that’s] respectful and recognizes the wonderfully diverse community that we are.” Conducted via the Internet, the survey of 6,351 mostly openly gay people (only 4.6% were still closeted) validated some expectations: Almost nine out of 10 respondents had attended college, over 20% having advanced degrees. Median household income was $65,000 (compared with $40,800 for all U.S. households). Nine out of 10 were registered voters, of whom 80% voted in the 2000 presidential election. More than half were in committed partnerships (58% of lesbians and 43% of gay men), and almost 13% of all respondents reported having children in the home—a remarkable figure, considering that just 29.6% of all U.S. households include children under 18. People are starting to recognize that there’s an increasing number of gay families,” said Amy Falkner, the study’s coauthor and lead researcher. “But I don’t think anyone was aware that there’s a real gender disparity there”—about 78% of those rearing children were women. The importance of sexual identity among this self-selected group was also apparent: Overall, 81.4% said they identified more strongly with their sexual orientation than with their ethnicity. The flip side to that finding was the sparsity of African-American respondents—making up 3.4% of the total, compared with 12.3% of the U.S. population. Of the African-American respondents, 63% said they identified more strongly with their ethnicity than their sexual orientation. Falkner declined to comment on that finding. GLBT people out on the Web The 6,000-plus participants in a Web survey provide a portrait of the GLBT people online: Most identify as gay or lesbian and are out in their daily life; among those with partners, more than a quarter have been together seven or more years. Racially, they are overwhelmingly white; 8.3% identified as Hispanic, an identity that crosses racial boundaries. Results from the 2001 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census, a Syracuse University, OpusComm Group, GSociety study Back to Top Survey details gay, lesbian spending habits SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- An online survey has put a face on America's gay and lesbian consumers, and it is a surprisingly familiar face, according to researchers. However, at least one gay rights advocacy group cautioned that the results actually may mask the true identity of America's gay and lesbian community. The study suggested gay and lesbian consumers are typically affluent, well-educated professionals, highly involved in politics and have money to spend, especially for products and services from companies seen as gay-friendly. "Some of the findings may not be startling--these ideas have been bantered about and hypothesized but never confirmed," said Jeffrey Garber, president of OpusComm Group, one of three partners involved in the "2001 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census." "Now we actually have statistics to certify what we believed. That's the breakthrough," Garber said. The Internet-based survey was designed to poll gay men and lesbians about their education, jobs, spending practices and politics and make that information available to advertisers. Nearly 6,000 U.S. respondents completed the 40-minute long survey. Chief among the survey's findings was that gay couples have a median combined household income of $65,000, compared to the overall 1999 U.S. median income of $40,800. Betsy Gressler, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, said she had reservations about the results of the survey. "I think it is wrong to project these findings on the entire gay and lesbian community. By its very definition, this was a consumer survey and those were the individuals who responded," Gressler said. "It is to their (the researchers) advantage to say the gay and lesbian community is made up of affluent professionals because that's who marketing officials are trying to attract," she said. There have been numerous studies previously done on gay and lesbian consumers but most have been smaller scale, less comprehensive or narrowly focused, said Cathy Renna, spokeswoman for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a nationwide media advocacy group. Meanwhile, over the past decade, a growing number of major U.S. companies have moved gay and lesbian advertising into the mainstream market as acceptance of homosexuality has grown in society and in the workplace, Renna said. However, the gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender community is a diverse community that crosses class, race, gender and age lines and it has been hard to pin down, she said. Although familiar with the survey, Renna had not yet reviewed the results and said she could not comment on the findings. According to the survey, nearly one-fifth of the respondents were employed in the fields of either computer/technology or education. Additionally, nearly nine of 10 respondents were registered to vote while nearly 90 percent said they had attended college. "Everyone thought there were a lot of well-educated, highly paid gay and lesbian people out there, but until this survey we couldn't put a number on it. Now, we can, and the numbers are impressive," said Cary Gilbert, vice president of GSociety, a media and entertainment company that operates two of the Internet's most targeted gay websites, GayWired.com and LesbianNation.com. "You will be seeing many more large corporations `coming out' as friendly to gays, once they see what a positive image in the gay community can do for sales," said Gilbert, whose company was a survey sponsor along with Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Communications. Gressler was concerned that by calling the study a census, it would create a false impression that it was a comprehensive accounting of all gays and lesbians. She noted that only those with computers, who knew how to use computers and had 40 minutes to answer the questions participated. "The population selected is skewed so it is not representative of the entire population," she said. Copyright © 2001, The Associated Press Survey looks at gay, lesbian consumers In the largest survey of its kind, the 2001 Gay-Lesbian Consumer Online Census debunked some myths, substantiated others and helped to identify the purchasing habits of gays and lesbians nationwide. "Gay men and lesbians collectively are an important consumer constituency," said Jeffrey Garber, president of OpusComm Group of Syracuse, one of three partners in the survey. "The (survey results) will become one of the primary tools used to educate mainstream advertisers about this unique and widely ignored market." The online survey polled more than 6,000 people - primarily gays and lesbians but also bisexual and transgendered individuals - over a month about their consumer habits and personal beliefs. It took respondants about 40 minutes to complete the survey. The main purpose was to create a consumer profile to guide advertisers, but it also examined how gays and lesbians view themselves and their lives. Among the findings: The median combined household income of gay couples - $65,000 - is nearly 60 percent higher than the U.S. median income of $40,800. Half the respondents said they are in a committed relationship; 58 percent for women and 43 percent for men. Generally, the men were in a relationship longer than women. Thirteen percent of respondents have children under 18 living at home, compared with about 30 percent of all U.S. households according to the U.S. Census. Nearly nine of 10 respondents are registered to vote; 69 percent are registered Democrats. Nearly 90 percent have attended college. Eight out of 10 respondents identified first with being gay rather than by race or ethnicity. The number was lower among African-American respondents, where 36 percent identified with being gay before being black. Ninety percent of respondents reported they are openly gay to their friends; 80 percent to family; and 65 percent say their sexual identity is known at work. The information about income and group identification are of particular note, the survey creators said. "We've always surmised that gay purchasing power is a force to be reckoned with," Garber said. "What was needed was a yardstick to accurately measure the impact of gay and lesbian consumerism." More than a fifth of respondents reported a combined income of $100,000 or more. Nearly 60 percent of male respondents and 46 percent of female reported a combined annual income higher than $60,000. "Advertisers are taking notice," said Amy P. Falkner, an assistant professor at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, who helped write the survey and study the results. "Advertising in both gay and mainstream publications will become more gay-friendly as retailers and service providers target the gay and lesbian market." The survey was created in a partnership between SU, OpusComm and GSociety, the largest online gay entertainment site. The purpose was to gauge the education levels, jobs, spending power and practice and politics of the gay and lesbian population in the nation and around the world. The survey is limited in that it uses a self-selecting population. Respondents chose to take the survey online, rather than being randomly selected. "It's not projectable, but no other survey is," Falkner said. "We don't know how big the (gay) population is." The survey was large enough that the results can be taken as representative, but "it's still just a snapshot," Falkner said. The study concluded there is a strong tendency among gays and lesbians to buy products or services from companies that are viewed as gay-friendly. The survey is designed to show companies the potential of the market they may be missing. "Money talks - the same in politics as in business," Garber said. "As the gay and lesbian economic power base becomes more widely recognized, we are sure to see many subtle and not-so-subtle changes in the way the gay population is courted." © 2001 The Post-Standard. Used with permission. Gay Purchasing Power A Significant Force, Major Study Reveals Syracuse, New York – The median combined household income of gay couples is $65,000, nearly 60 percent fifty percent higher than the 1999 U.S. median income of $40,800, a first-of-its-kind study reveals. Advertisers are taking notice. “We’ve always surmised that gay purchasing power is a force to be reckoned with,” says Jeffrey Garber, founder of the project study. “What was needed was a yardstick to accurately measure the impact of gay and lesbian consumerism.” Garber, president of OpusComm Group, Inc., in conjunction with the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University and media/entertainment company GSociety, Inc., has developed the first comprehensive and in-depth census of the economics and buying habits of the gay and lesbian market. The Internet-based census was designed to poll gay men and lesbians about their education, jobs, spending practices, and politics, and make that information available to advertisers. “Gay men and lesbians collectively are an important consumer constituency,“ according to Garber. “The 2001 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census will become one of the primary tools used to educate mainstream advertisers about this unique and widely ignored niche market.” “A few major corporations are beginning to reap the rewards as pioneers in this market,” says Syracuse University Professor Amy Falkner, expert in targeted advertising and how different groups use the Internet. “Gay and lesbian advertising is moving “out of the closet” and into the mainstream market.” Nearly 6,000 U.S. respondents completed the 40 minute long census. The study reveals a significantly higher median income for gay households than the U.S. median. More than a fifth of respondents reported a total combined income of $100,000 or more. Nearly 60 percent of gay male households and 46 percent of lesbian households showed a combined income in excess of $60,000. “This means well-heeled gay and lesbian couples, sharing two incomes and generally without the expense of raising children (13 percent of Gay/Lesbian couples have children under 18 years of age living at home), can plan to be actively courted in the near future by industry and services anxious to open up this “new” market,” says Falkner. In findings destined to change the way advertisers cozy up to the affluent gay and lesbian market, the study reveals a strong tendency among this group to buy products or services from companies they know to be gay-friendly. “You’ll be seeing many more large corporations “coming out” as friendly to gays, once they see what a positive image in the gay community can do for sales,” explains Cary Gilbert, president of gay entertainment/media company GSociety, Inc. “It isn’t being deceptive or devious on the company’s part. Instead it’s a matter of taking the opportunity to be open and positive about their policies and goals concerning the gay population. That recognizing gay clients has a positive effect on the bottom line is a side benefit — and a compelling one.” Nearly 9 out of 10 census respondents are registered voters, and 79.8 percent of them voted in the 2000 presidential election, as compared to 49 percent of the general public who voted in the 1996 election, according to the Clerk of the U.S. Congress. The great majority — 68.8 percent — are registered Democrats. “Money talks, the same in politics as in business,” Garber says. “As the gay and lesbian economic power base becomes more widely recognized, we are sure to see many subtle and not-so-subtle changes in the way the gay population is courted.” Back to Top Gay purchasing power reaches new high SYRACUSE, New York -- The median combined household income of American gay couples is $65,000, nearly 60 percent higher than the 1999 U.S. average income of $40,800, a first-of-its-kind study reveals. OpusComm Group, Inc., in conjunction with the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University and media/entertainment company GSociety, Inc., has developed what it says is the first comprehensive and in-depth census of the economics and buying habits of the gay and lesbian market. Jeffrey Garber, president of OpusComm said, "We've always surmised that gay purchasing power is a force to be reckoned with. What was needed was a yardstick to accurately measure the impact of gay and lesbian consumerism." The survey, an Internet-based census was designed to poll gay men and lesbians about their education, jobs, spending practices and politics, and make that information available to advertisers. "Gay men and lesbians collectively are an important consumer constituency," according to Garber. "The 2001 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census will become one of the primary tools used to educate mainstream advertisers about this unique and widely ignored niche market." "A few major corporations are beginning to reap the rewards as pioneers in this market," says Syracuse University Professor Amy Falkner, expert in targeted advertising and how different groups use the Internet. "Gay and lesbian advertising is moving 'out of the closet' and into the mainstream market." Nearly 6,000 U.S. respondents completed the 40-minute-long census. The study reveals a significantly higher median income for gay households than the U.S. median. More than a fifth of respondents reported a total combined income of $100,000 or more. Nearly 60 percent of gay male households and 46 percent of lesbian households showed a combined income in excess of $60,000. "This means well-heeled gay and lesbian couples, sharing two incomes and generally without the expense of raising children (13 percent of gay/lesbian couples have children under 18 years of age living at home), can plan to be actively courted in the near future by industry and services anxious to open up this new market," says Falkner. In findings destined to change the way advertisers cozy up to the affluent gay and lesbian market, the study reveals a strong tendency among this group to buy products or services from companies they know to be gay-friendly. "You'll be seeing many more large corporations 'coming out' as friendly to gays, once they see what a positive image in the gay community can do for sales," explains Cary Gilbert, president of GSociety, Inc.
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 07, 2004 00:01
Thursday, October 9, 2003
GM is entrenched in "Queer Eye" with its upscale GMC Yukon XL Denali prominently displayed in each episode.
GM tastes success with featured Yukon on hit 'Queer Eye.' By Mike Hudson / The Detroit News Volvo has introduced ads with a number of same-sex couples, some with children, others with pets, with an SUV and convertible version of its cars pictured. Marketing to gays
* Avis Rent-A-Car: Runs adds in targeted magazines trumpeting its treatment of domestic partners as family members. * Earthlink: Runs print ads with same-sex couples reading "Your Internet service should be as fabulous as you are." * Bridgestone Tires: Runs a series of Internet ads on gay- and lesbian-related Web sites with same-sex couples pictured. * Subaru of America: One of the first auto companies to target gays and lesbians, featured targeted magazine ads in 1996 that read "It's not a choice. It's the way we're built." Source: Detroit News research
DETROIT -- The Fab Five from TV's "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" have worked wonders with the hair and threads of America's most fashion-challenged stiffs, but can they do the same for General Motors? Thanks to a brilliant bit of marketing luck and foresight, General Motors Corp. is firmly entrenched in "Queer Eye," Bravo Network's hourlong makeover phenomenon, with its GMC Yukon XL Denali prominently displayed in each episode. The "Queer Eye" promotion stands out as GM's first high-profile attempt to reach buyers in the gay community. Now with the show's success, Detroit's most notorious corporate wallflower is considering a broader campaign to capture more of the $450 billion spending power of the gay and lesbian community. GM is not the only automaker interested in broadening its appeal to diverse communities. Subaru has courted gay buyers for several years. And last year, Jaguar launched a print campaign aimed at reaching gays and lesbians. Marketing to gays and lesbians remains somewhat rare among Detroit's automakers. Despite its success with "Queer Eye," GM is hesitant to discuss its overall strategy. DaimlerChrysler AG is running some tailored ads overseas and Ford Motor Co. is using direct ads only for its Jaguar and Volvo luxury brands. "The Big Three have only come along in the last couple of years, but they were not among the first to try it," said Michael Wilke, marketing analyst and founder of Commercial closet.com, a Web site for gay and lesbian-related advertising. "GM's deal with 'Queer Eye' can hardly be considered a solid effort at the (gay and lesbian) market." On "Queer Eye," Carson, Ted, Kyan, Jai and Thom -- dubbed the Fab Five -- dash to the rescue of hapless heterosexuals, treating them to salons, luxury clothiers and high-end grocers in hopes of making them more attractive to their mates. Before the show's debut, GM won the right to be the featured ride by providing the truck to the show -- complete with a New York license plate reading "FAB 5". Show is huge success The show has been a surprise success, capturing the imagination of America and raising the five makeover artists to cult celebrity status. GM has enjoyed the exposure with an estimated 2 million mostly young and cosmopolitan viewers getting a peek at the Denali every time the show is aired. "It was a roll of the dice really because you don't know how product placements are going to work out," said Clark Sanford, GMC's promotional brand manager. "The show just took off from the start." The company further said it has received thousands of requests for information on the vehicle directly as a result of the show. Overall, sales of GMC Yukon models are up 3.3 percent year-to-date in 2003 from 2002, while GM's overall unit sales have fallen 3.1 percent. With one major win under its belt, GM wants to keep its momentum. "Queer Eye" has been picked up for another season and GMC has secured product rights on the show for another year. The experience leaves GM in a peculiar position with the gay and lesbian community, however, because the No. 1 automaker has yet to formally court homosexual consumers, despite an obvious desire for their dollars. GM explores ad options Company officials say they are exploring a more general ad campaign directed at the gay community as part of an overall diversity marketing effort. But nothing formal has been decided. Companies have long advertised directly to the gay community in Western Europe and Australia. A popular 1999 Hyundai ad in Sweden, for instance, showed a woman hiding her boyfriend while stopping at a traffic light near her husband's car, only to have another boyfriend pop up inside the man's car when his wife pulls away. In the United States, when advertisers touch on gay themes it has often been for comedic effect. Ford broke the trend in June 2002 by hiring Washington, D.C.'s Witeck Combs marketing firm -- founded by openly gay former IBM executive Wesley Combs. The company is working with Ford to create ads targeting gay and lesbian buyers for its high-end foreign brands. Jaguar was trendsetter Jaguar was the first to introduce a tailored magazine ad as a result of the Witeck Combs effort. In 2002, it started placing print ads with a curvinging road with the caption "Life is full of twists and turns. Care for a partner?" Volvo has since introduced ads with a number of same-sex couples, some with children, others with pets, with the caption "Whether you're starting a family or creating one as you go" -- with an SUV and convertible version of its cars pictured. "It's more than an advertising effort as we also have worked to become involved with community groups as well," said John Butler, manager of the Ford account for Witeck Combs. "Smart advertisers realize that these ads are only a small part of a total plan to reach a market." The company has been so successful, it will receive a "Fairness" award from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation on Wednesday for being a gay-friendly company. More likely to follow Ford Analysts say more automakers are likely to follow Ford's lead as U.S. brands tap niche markets to compete. "Typically, after a company starts offering domestic-partner benefits to its employees, which the Big Three have, they will become more comfortable marketing to the gay community," Commercialcloset.com's Wilke said. "That's what we're seeing here." For now, however, GM will be content to see what it can get with its "Queer Eye" experience. The company -- like many of the show's contestants -- isn't sure if it will make a habit out of appearing on gay-friendly shows, though it isn't ruling it out. "Our market for the Yukon is young professionals and the Bravo audience fits that very well," said Tom Beaman, brand spokesman for GMC and Pontiac. "GM as a whole is looking to sell as many vehicles as possible and we'll continue to look for opportunities to do that."
[This message has been edited by mondayschild (edited April 07, 2004).] IP: Logged |
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beginner Member |
posted April 07, 2004 00:03
mondayschild.....MY GOD! That is one helluva post. LOL.. I'll read it tomorrow at work, hahha. I'm going to sleep. IP: Logged |
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mondayschild Member |
posted April 07, 2004 00:09
Advertising Age
IBM Corp., having run diversity recruitment ads in gay media for some time before adding support for its Lotus brand. is increasing its presence with the introduction this month of a special WorkPad palm computer loaded with gay travel information software. Supporting product ads will bring Big blue into local gay newspapers nationwide, and to gay Internet sites for the first time. "We are moving forward very aggressively," said Leslie Smith, IBM segment executive-market development. But not blindly. Previously basing their efforts targeting gays and lesbians largely on intuition, big advertisers increasingly are spending significant sums to conduct proprietary research on the market — and to find out how their products are faring. American Express Co. shelled out $250,000 for research last year before committing additional ad funds to the market, and Subaru of America spent an undisclosed sum before beginning its targeted advertising at all. These three advertisers all now have a major presence in the market. "Nothing gets marketing people over their fears more than results," said Howard Buford, president of agency PrimeAccess, New York, which specializes in reaching gays and other minority groups. "There is more credibility and a track record in the market, and backlash is not the issue everyone expected. You're dealing with a different attitude going in now." An early estimate from the annual gay media report done by ad agency Mulryan/Nash indicates ad revenues in the market will be up for the third consecutive year, with 1998 revenues projected to rise 16.9% to $117.1 million. That's a drop from the 36% growth experienced in last year's survey but healthy nonetheless. The estimate was tallied from 13 of the 137 publications in the full annual survey, which is based on revenues for April and projected for the full year; the complete study will be released by August. Other major marketers are slowly finding comfort in the gay market by introducing or building their brands one at a time. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. began targeting gays with a small Clairol Men's Choice hair coloring ad in Out in late 1996. A year later, its prescription AIDS drug Zerit began a significant presence in the market, expanded in the June 1998 Out to inlcude prescription anti-depressant Buspar. The marketer's pace will increase next month with ads in The Advocate for the first shampoo brand to advertise in the gay market, Clairol's Aussie haircare. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. began testing its alternative Kamel brand in gay magazines in March 1996, and increased that presence to upfront spreads. Now ads for its Salem menthol brand are testing in New York City's MetroSource, and this month the marketer brings its regular Camel cigarette into gay media. Alamo Rent A Car, Hartford Financial Services Group, Seagram Co.'s Tropicana orange juice, Sprint PCS and others have brought new ad categories to the market. "I'm not really that shocked by anyone coming into the market anymore," said Joe Landry, publisher of The Advocate. Hartford ran an unusual gay-focused ad for its auto insurance in gay magazines and via San Francisco outdoor boards and newspapers for the general market. Anheuser-Busch's Bud Light, Grand Metropolitan's Bailey's Original Irish Cream, Miller Brewing Co. and others have created gay-specific ads after first running mainstream campaigns in the gay market. Todd Evans, president of Rivendell Marketing, Westfield, N.J., which represents 185 gay newspapers for national sales, expects 1999 to be another "boom year." "We have four times as many proposals inquiring about the gay market," he said. While he doesn't compile a report similar to Mulryan/Nash's, Mr. Evans said he thought that shop's 1998 revenue estimate for gay media may be low. The most recent category to break into the market is hotel, with an ad from Inter-Continental Hotels & Resorts Corp. in the July 7 Advocate, via Campbell Group Baltimore. The financial services category also is becoming more important, with Aetna, Chase Manhattan Corp., Citibank, Merrill Lynch & Co. and others preparing to launch more visible gay marketing efforts. Citibank began realizing the potential of the gay and lesbian market after it incorporated them into its corporate non-discrimination policy a few years ago. It intends to brand itself nationally in the gay community next year. Also, the bank is exploring a co-branded credit card with American Airlines for the market. New national gay magazines are trying to get the attention of advertisers. Print titles such as Arrow, Instinct, QV Magazine, and Venus have cropped up, the latter two aimed at Hispanics and African-Americans, respectively. Arrow, being launched this month, hopes to distinguish itself from gay glossies by focusing on "family, relationships and monogamy." Established publications are primping to stay attractive. With its July issue, Out introduces a major redesign. Out's circulation for 1997 was up 12% to 136,381 according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Ad pages through May 1998 are up 20.8% to 316.1, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. The Advocate continues to adjust its look, albeit more subtly since its redesign more than a year ago. Its circulation rose 4.3% to 81,862 for 1997, according to the audit bureau; through May, ad pages were up 0.4% to 457.5, according to PIB. Despite modest circulation gains, some wonder why gay titles aren't getting more readers. "There's a growing reluctance by the community to define itself as all-gay, all the time," said Dave Mulryan, president of Mulryan/Nash. "What is it like to be a gay man in Omaha in 1998? The media are not delivering how many people see themselves." National advertisers also are turning to gay newspapers. Combined, the 185 publications served by Rivendell have 3.5 million in circulation. United Airlines, RJR's Camel, and Domecq Importers' Sauza tequila and Beefeater gin recently have gone into gay papers. "We're looking at a lot more companies coming into the gay marketplace," said Mr. Buford. "It's not so pioneering anymore; now they're just covering their bases." IP: Logged |
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