http://www.opuscommgroup.com/NewsRoom.html News Room
(National Coverage on both G/L Census & OpusComm Group)
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Study: Few gays practice their religion- The Advocate, August 7, 2003
Gay Episcopalians Among Most Active in Church- Reuters, August 6, 2003
PlanetOut Posts First Profit, Helped by Personals Revenue- The Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2003
Gay market wooed at Miami Beach expo- The Miami Herald, April 5, 2003
Travel agency prospers by catering to gays- ContraCosta Times, March 2, 2003
Survey gives clear picture of gay community- The Miami Herald (business page), November 4, 2002
Marketing survey nets thousands of responces- The Miami Herald (business page), August 26, 2002
Big Business looks to the rainbow- The Miami Herald (business page), August 26, 2002
USA TODAY Snapshot–GLBT Marriage- USA Today (front page), June 19, 2002
Marriage Law Becomes Gay Priority- The Detroit News, May 20, 2002
Queer as Folk named favorite show in GLBT poll- The Advocate.com, March 5, 2002
USA TODAY Snapshot–Goverment Help of GLBT- USA TODAY (front page), February 22-24, 2002
Viacom Hatches Gay Network- Forbes.com, January 14, 2002
Advertisers seen welcoming gay-oriented TV network- Entertainment - Reuters, January 10, 2002
Gay tourism sustains Fort Lauderdale through tough economic times- South Florida Sun-Sentinel News, November 23 2001
A snapshot of gay and lesbian lives - The Advocate.com, November 16 2001
A Market Kept in the Closet- American Demographics magazine, November 2001
Survey details gay, lesbian spending habits- Newsday.com, October 19 2001
Survey looks at gay, lesbian consumers- The Post-Standard (Syracuse.com), October 16 2001
Gay purchasing power reaches new high- Gay.com, October 15 2001
Gays More Affluent, More Likely to Vote Than Other Americans, Survey Says DiversityInc.com, October 15, 2001
Gay Purchasing Power A Significant Force, Major Study Reveals- metroG.com, October 13 2001
Survey directed to gays, lesbians- The Post-Standard (Syracuse.com), July 10 2001
Spending by gays, lesbians is focus of online survey - The Buffalo News, July 10 2001
Gay Census Makes us Count!- gaywired.com, July 9 2001
Gay/Lesbian Market Loyal to Message, Not Myth- LesbiaNation, July 9 2001
Breakthrough in Gay Consumerism- gaywired.com, July 9 2001
Overlooking Gay Consumers Could Prove Costly for Top Corporations- DiversityInc.com, April 19 2001
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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.
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Study: Few gays practice their religion
August 7, 2003
A significant percentage of gay men and lesbians belong to a certain religion, but few are practicing that religion, a recent survey has revealed. More than six out of 10 (63.7%) respondents to the 2002-2003 Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census said they are affiliated with a particular religion; 38% said they are practicing members. The largest segment is Catholics (17.2%), although only 29.5% of those members said they are practicing. Six percent of respondents say they are atheists, and almost a third (30.3%) said they have no religious preference.
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."
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June 4, 2003 8:10 p.m. EDT
E-BUSINESS
PlanetOut Posts First Profit,
Helped by Personals Revenue
By JENNIFER SARANOW
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
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
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Posted on Sat, Apr. 05, 2003
Gay market wooed at Miami Beach expo
BY CHRISTINA HOAG
choag@herald.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.''
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Posted on Sun, Mar. 02, 2003
Travel agency prospers by catering to gays
By David Whelan
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
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.'
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Posted on Mon, Nov. 04, 2002
Survey gives clear picture of gay community
BY STEVE ROTHAUS
srothaus@herald.com
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.
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Posted on Mon, Aug. 26, 2002
Marketing survey nets thousands of responses
BY STEVE ROTHAUS
srothaus@herald.com
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.''
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Business
Big business looks to the rainbow
August 26, 2002
BY STEVE ROTHAUS
srothaus@herald.com
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.''
srothaus@herald.com
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Media
Viacom Hatches Gay Network
Penelope Patsuris, Forbes.com, 01.14.02, 11:39 AM ET
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
GSociety. Gay Americans generally have 10% more disposable income than the average American, according to Prime Access, and the population's total spending power is estimated to be $450 billion by Gay Market Express.com. That's less than the country's African-American market, but more than the
Hispanic or Asian markets.
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 around to recycle as reruns. Showtime's gay-themed series Queer as Folk is actually one of the network's highest-rated programs, but it's unclear how many other gay-oriented shows Viacom has in its library.
So Viacom faces the challenge of building a never-before-cultivated viewership from scratch while keeping programming costs down. Can it work? Stay tuned.
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USA TODAY June 19, 2002 -FRONT PAGE
Zogby/GLCensus Partners Poll
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USA TODAY Snapshot
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
• 16% Equal opportunity protection in employment
• 9% Hate-crimes legislation to punish "gay bashing
• 7% Increased gay representation in government
• 5% Increased integration with rest of America
Source: Zogby/GLCensus Partners Poll April 26- 29 of 1.563 self selected respondents who identify themselves as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, Website www.glcensus.org
*GLCensus is a Syracuse University, OpusComm Group and GSociety Partnership
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*Article refers to "Zogby/GLCensus Partners Poll"– Syracuse University, OpusComm Group, GSociety partnership
Marriage law becomes gay priority
Monday, May 20, 2002
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.
Recently, Connecticut's Legislature passed a compromise granting some marriage-like rights to gay couples and requiring a report on same-sex marriage and civil unions by next January. Republican Gov. John Rowland has promised to sign the compromise into law. It was reached as lawmakers weighed measures to create "civil unions" -- a system pioneered by Vermont in 2000 to extend all the state-level rights and responsibilities of marriage to gay couples -- or to simply allow same-sex couples to marry, as The Netherlands does.
Throughout the haggling, Connecticut's state gay rights coalition, Love Makes a Family, stressed that its ultimate goal is same-sex marriage. And it and its allies in the Legislature insisted that the compromise include a study on opening marriage to those of us who're gay.
"Including the study in the legislation made clear that our goal was marriage and that we weren't going away with the granting of this handful of rights," says coalition president Anne Stanback.
"What was interesting about the debate is that our opponents seemed to think of same-sex marriage as inevitable and that they were wanting to keep it from happening for as long as possible. But there's a general resignation (among them) that eventually it's going to happen, that this is the direction Connecticut and the world are going," she adds.
The spunkiness and determination in Stanback's voice reflect an amazing change in the self-confidence of everyday gay Americans around the marriage issue.
When Hawaii's steps toward legalizing gay marriage led to a backlash in Congress and many states in the mid-1990s, some gay-rights advocates felt the need to pooh-pooh the "slippery slope" argument by foes that we'd ultimately try to push beyond any piecemeal rights thrown our way and would be satisfied with nothing less than full marriage. But not anymore.
"Our foes kept saying 'This is a slippery slope to marriage,' and we kept nodding our heads, 'Yep,'" says Stanback, unabashedly embracing marriage as the goal, just as do the movement's two top political groups, the Human Rights Campaign and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
And a Zogby/GL Census Partners Poll (released here for the first time) spotlights the strong consensus among gay Americans that marriage should be our movement's top priority. (See www.glcensus.org)
* A whopping 83 percent say gay marriage should be one of the top three goals. Nothing else comes close. Working for equal job rights is second, at 52 percent.
* Overall, 47 percent say legal recognition of same-sex marriage should be the No. 1 goal. Among lesbians, 57 percent say marriage is the top goal.
* Gay people under 25 are the most ardent about seeking marriage. That's exciting news since they can pump all their youthful energy into the issue without the psychological baggage that we older, once-in-the-closet types sometimes still carry.
"These numbers are phenomenal," exclaims attorney Evan Wolfson, who has been steering the drive for marriage for more than a decade. "Gay people now believe this is within reach, which is the necessary precursor to reaching it. And it shows that we shouldn't be dumbing down the definition of equality when we talk to non-gay people."
A crass election-year ploy last week by some members of Congress, who proposed a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage, offers yet another prime opportunity for gay people and our allies to speak out: The protection that only marriage can provide is an essential option for all couples.
Deb Price
Deb Price's column is published on Monday. You can contact her at (202) 662-7370 or dprice@detnews.com.
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Queer as Folk named favorite show in GLBT poll
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."
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USA TODAY February 22, 2002 -FRONT PAGE
Zogby/GLCensus Partners Poll
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
USA TODAY Snapshot
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
of the Sept. 11 attacks as much as heterosexual survivors.
The breakdown:
• 75% "Won't provide for needs to same-sex survivors"
• 14% "Not sure"
• 12% "Will provide for needs of same-sex survivors"
Source: Zogby/GLCensus Partners Poll of 1,386 self selected respondents who identity themselves as
gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. The poll was conducted Jan. 11 - 14
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Entertainment - Reuters
Thursday January 10 8:33 PM ET
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
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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.
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Gay/Lesbian Market Loyal to Message, Not Myth
By KellyAnn Tucci
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.
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Gay Census Makes us Count!
by KellyAnn Tucci
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.
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Gay tourism sustains Fort Lauderdale through tough economic times
By Scott Wyman Staff Writer Posted November 23 2001
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.
Copyright © 2001, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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Gays More Affluent, More Likely to Vote Than Other Americans, Survey Says
By MATTHEW VALIA
©2001 DiversityInc.com
Oct, 15, 2001
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.
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Spending by gays, lesbians is focus of online survey
By WILLIAM KATES
Associated Press
7/10/01
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.
Copyright © 1999 - 2001 The Buffalo NewsTM
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Survey directed to gays, lesbians
Syracuse University helps create questionnaire for the Internet.
Tuesday, July 10, 2001
By Juliana Gittler
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.
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Overlooking Gay Consumers Could Prove Costly for Top Corporations
By T.J. DEGROAT
April 19, 2001
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
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A snapshot of gay and lesbian lives
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
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Survey details gay, lesbian spending habits
By WILLIAM KATES
Associated Press Writer
October 19, 2001, 4:44 AM EDT
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
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Survey looks at gay, lesbian consumers
Online census was done to create a profile to guide advertisers.
Tuesday, October 16, 2001
By Juliana Gittler
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.
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Gay Purchasing Power A Significant Force, Major Study Reveals
Press Release
October 13, 2001
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.”
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Gay purchasing power reaches new high
by Beth Shapiro
365Gay.com
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.
For more national, Canadian and international news, visit 365Gay.com.
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.. hehe. It'll all come together.
