![LGBT Demonstration Karlsruhe 29](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/LGBT_Demonstration_Karlsruhe_29.jpg)
LGBT marketing is the act of
marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
to
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is a ...
(lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) customers, either with dedicated ads or general ads, or through sponsorships of LGBT organizations and events, or the targeted use of any other element of the
marketing mix
The term "marketing mix" is a foundation model for businesses, historically centered around product, price, place, and promotion (also known as the "4 Ps"). The marketing mix has been defined as the "set of marketing tools that the firm uses to ...
.
The LGBT market comprises a group of customers who buy goods and services from a broad range of companies across industry segments and in many countries.
History
![LGBT Demonstration Karlsruhe 43](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/LGBT_Demonstration_Karlsruhe_43.jpg)
One of the first instances of the impact of the LGBT community in the marketing world was in 1973 when
Coors Brewing Company
The Coors Brewing Company started as an American brewery and beer company in Golden, Colorado. In 2005, Adolph Coors Company, the holding company that owned Coors Brewing, merged with Molson, Inc. to become Molson Coors.
The first Coors brew ...
was the subject of a boycott by the LGBT community. The LGBT community joined to protest Coors' hiring practices, since Coors used a
polygraph
A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked an ...
test when going through the hiring process and specifically asked an employee about their sexual orientation. Coors ignored the boycott for several years, but made some concessions in 1978, and in 1995 began several countermeasures, including dropping the questions regarding homosexuality and extending domestic partnership benefits to its LGBT employees. The company also hired
Mary Cheney
Mary Claire Cheney (; born March 14, 1969) is the younger of the two daughters of Dick Cheney, the 46th vice president of the United States and 17th United States secretary of defense, and Lynne Cheney. She is involved with a number of political ...
as a marketing representative and began advertising in
The Advocate and at events such as Denver's PrideFest.
Statistics
Marketing to the gay and lesbian community faces statistical obstacles in that few credible peer-reviewed estimates of the gay and lesbian marketplace have been published. In particular, the use of non-random "convenience surveys" on attendees at gay resorts and subscribers to
gay or lesbian newspapers has resulted in unreliable statistical estimates of LGBT buying power. The exact number of gays and lesbians in a given market is generally, if not always, unknown.
However, some national governments have started to publish data that include
demographics of sexual orientation
Obtaining precise numbers on the demographics of sexual orientation is difficult for a variety of reasons, including the nature of the research questions. Most of the studies on sexual orientation rely on self-reported data, which may pose challe ...
from census results. In the
2000 United States Census
The United States census of 2000, conducted by the Census Bureau, determined the resident population of the United States on April 1, 2000, to be 281,421,906, an increase of 13.2 percent over the 248,709,873 people enumerated during the 1990 ce ...
, two questions were asked that allowed same-sex partnerships to be counted, and the
Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
reported that there were more than 658,000 same-sex couples heading households in the United States. In 2013, the
American Marketing Association
The American Marketing Association (AMA) is a professional association for marketing professionals with 30,000 members as of 2012. It has 76 professional chapters and 250 collegiate chapters across the United States.
The AMA was formed in from th ...
reported that 3.5% of adults in the United States identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and .3% of adults as transgender. At that time, the LGBT consumer market was estimated to have an overall buying power of more than $835 billion.
Advertising categories
Major ad categories include travel, financial services, alcoholic beverages, automotive, entertainment, hair and skincare, luxury goods, pharmaceuticals, and fashion. For example,
American Airlines
American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...
has launched a specific LGBT-targeted vacations website.
While over fifteen years old in the United States, LGBT marketing is a relatively new marketing phenomenon elsewhere in Australia and Europe, including Belgium
and the Netherlands.
Many brands that have previously ignored the existence of this segment of society now increasingly target LGBT customers.
In August 2006,
''Time'' magazine carried a Business article on growing interest amongst brand name advertisers in Europe to target LGBT customers.
In 2013, the
Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is an American LGBTQ advocacy group. It is the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGB ...
issued the Corporate Equality Index 2013, which provides a national benchmarking tool on corporate policies and practices related to LGBT employees in the United States. This is also used to determine a company's level of gay-friendliness.
Social media
Social media
Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...
plays an incredibly important part in an LGBT youth's life, with Amy Adele Hassinoff stating that "a variety of studies of gay, lesbian, transgender and queer youth indicate that the internet provides an important way to connect with communities and romantic partners, find information, and gain confidence" (Hasinoff, 2012). For marketers, this is important knowledge to possess as it suggests that LGBT marketing should place a heavy focus on the social media aspects of their campaigns.
Social marketing
A large amount of the marketing that is aimed at the LGBT community has a heavy focus on
social marketing
Social marketing is a marketing approach which focuses on influencing behavior with the primary goal of achieving "common good." It utilizes the elements of commercial marketing and applies them to social concepts. However, to see social marke ...
.
Social marketing is defined by Alan R. Andreasen as:
"The adaption of commercial marketing technologies... to influence the voluntary behaviour of target audiences to improve their personal welfare and that of the society of which they are a part" (Andreasen, 1994).
Put simply, social marketing's main aim is to raise awareness about a topic or issue within a community and work to change the overall opinion, attitude, or actions associated with that issue. Social marketing in a community that is as intimate and intertwined as the LGBT community is an extremely effective and important way to get messages across that really benefit the community as a whole.
Social benefits of successful LGBT marketing campaigns
The effects of a successful LGBT marketing campaign can positively impact the LGBT community in ways that make the community safer and more welcoming, which is the overall goal of social marketing. Some examples of these effects include:
Love Your Condom – New Zealand
The New Zealand Aids Foundation (NZAF) launched the Love Your Condom (LYC) campaign in 2014 to promote the concept of safer sex through the active use of condoms and lube every time gay/bisexual men have sex. The overall goal of the campaign was to reduce the transmission of HIV in New Zealand amongst gay and bisexual men, as these were the groups that were identified as the highest at risk (Clayton-Brown, 2015).
The LYC campaign incorporates traditional media, such as billboards and print, (i.e. newspapers and magazines), along with an active social media presence and
guerrilla marketing
Guerrilla marketing is an advertisement strategy in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a product or service. It is a type of publicity. The term was popularized by Jay Conrad Levinson's 198 ...
to engage with its target audience – gay/bisexual men in New Zealand.
The campaign was launched after the NZAF executive director Shaun Robinson noticed condom use amongst men who have sex with men, otherwise known as MSM, was on the decline, both in NZ and internationally (Saxton et al., 2015).
The success of the campaign can be measured through the popularity of the LYC social media channels as a part of the NZ LGBT community, and in the statistic published on the NZAF webpage that states "new HIV infection rates among MSM in NZ have dropped 12%" since the launch of LYC. (NZAF, n.d.)
Know Your Status Stage – New York
The not-for-profit organization LifeBeat is a charity that works with the music industry to educate America's young LGBT and their allies about the realities and dangers of HIV/AIDS (LifeBeat, c2013).
In 2014 LifeBeat launched the Know Your Status Stage (KYSS) campaign to try and raise awareness for the importance of getting tested for HIV on a larger scale than ever before. The idea behind it was to hold a large scale music event with artists that were very attractive to the target audience, (LGBT aged 13–25), where the only way to receive a ticket was to take a simple HIV test. The two objectives were to get at least 167 youth to visit the testing locations and attract NYC youth who had never been tested. (Effie Worldwide, 2015
)
Due to the mass followings of the artists on social media and the incorporation of traditional advertising through the use of billboards in popular areas and ads in newspapers that were popular with their target audience, the campaign went viral.
A large factor of this success is that today's youth experience a new phenomenon that has been labeled 'FOMO', or
fear of missing out, as a result of social media which meant more and more of the target audience were getting tested just to attend this event (Przybylski et al., 2013
).
This campaign's success was unprecedented due to the heavy online social media presence of the youth, spreading this event through word of mouth. The objective of 167 youth tested was almost tripled, and 60% of those youth tested said they had never been tested before, with 98% of those saying they would get tested again. (Effie Worldwide, 2015
)
As a direct result of this campaign, numbers of youth that were educated in terms of HIV and their own status in New York City grew considerably, and therefore the LGBT community could be perceived as a safer place, as these youth were now aware of the risks involved with sex, and the consequences of unsafe sex. LifeBeat stated that "due to the impressive performance of the KYSS idea in New York, the name was registered to spread the initiative to other cities in other states with high youth HIV indices, like Florida, California, Texas and Georgia" (Effie Worldwide, 2015
).
Controversies
LGBT marketing initiatives have not been without controversy both for and against them.
Coors Brewing Company
The Coors Brewing Company started as an American brewery and beer company in Golden, Colorado. In 2005, Adolph Coors Company, the holding company that owned Coors Brewing, merged with Molson, Inc. to become Molson Coors.
The first Coors brew ...
was the subject of a boycott by the LGBT community starting in 1973. The boycott was initiated by
labor unions
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
to protest the company's antagonistic practices, and was later joined by
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
s,
Mexicans
Mexicans ( es, mexicanos) are the citizens of the United Mexican States.
The most spoken language by Mexicans is Spanish language, Spanish, but some may also speak languages from 68 different Languages of Mexico, Indigenous linguistic groups ...
, and the LGBT community.
The LGBT community joined to protest Coors' hiring practices – polygraph tests were often required, during which the prospective employee was asked about their sexual orientation.
Coors ignored the boycott for several years, but made some concessions in 1978, and in 1995 began several countermeasures, including dropping the questions regarding homosexuality and extending
domestic partnership
A domestic partnership is a legal relationship, usually between couples, who live together and share a common domestic life, but are not married (to each other or to anyone else). People in domestic partnerships receive benefits that guarantee r ...
benefits to its LGBT employees. The company also hired
Mary Cheney
Mary Claire Cheney (; born March 14, 1969) is the younger of the two daughters of Dick Cheney, the 46th vice president of the United States and 17th United States secretary of defense, and Lynne Cheney. She is involved with a number of political ...
as a marketing representative and began advertising in ''
The Advocate'' and at events such as
Denver
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
's
PrideFest.
Specialist LGBT marketing agencies in various countries provide specialized LGBT market services to companies seeking to target LGBT customers.
The tobacco and alcohol industries have marketed products directly to the LGBT+ community. In 1990, ACT-UP, an AIDS organization, boycotted Phillip Morris. Following this, other tobacco companies began funding AIDS organizations.
In a 2013 study, LGBT+ participants reported statistically significant higher levels of exposure to tobacco-related content than non-LGBT+ participants.
In 2010, of the sampled parades that listed sponsors, 61% of the prides were sponsored by the alcohol industry.
In a study gauging LGBT+ response to targeted marketing, researchers noted that participants, particularly non-POC, interpreted it as valuable representation.
The LGBT+ community has historically suffered from higher levels of substance abuse than non-LGBT+ individuals. As of 2013, LGBT+ youth struggle with higher levels of alcohol usage than their non-LGBT+ peers, a pattern previously seen in 1998, 2003, and 2008 data.
In a 2016 study, 49.5% of LGBT+ respondents reported current cigarette smoking, while 70.2% recognized smoking endangered one's health.
In 2009-2010 data from the National Adult Tobacco Survey, gay and bisexual smokers were less likely to be aware of cessation helplines than straight smokers.
Marketing campaigns focusing on lowering levels of LGBT+ substance abuse have been attempted. Break Up, a LGBT+ focused anti-smoking campaign, was met with mixed results; while a study following its implementation indicated helpline usage had increased, cessation attempts had not.
In 2016, the FDA funded the This Free Life campaign to help prevent and reduce smoking among LGBT+ young adults.
Pinkwashing
"Pinkwashing" is a
portmanteau
A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of words[compound word
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when ...](_blank)
of the words "pink" and "whitewashing" that is used to describe a variety of marketing and political strategies aimed at promoting a product or an entity through an appeal to
queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...
-friendliness, primarily by political or social activists. The phrase was originally coined by
Breast Cancer Action
Breast Cancer Action (BCAction) is a U.S.-based grassroots education and activist organization driven by and supporting people living with breast cancer. It was founded in 1990 by Elenore Pred, Susan Claymon, and Linda Reyes. Based in San Franci ...
to identify companies that claimed to support women with
breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...
while actually profiting from their illness.
See also
*
Commercial Closet Association
*
Gay-friendly
Gay-friendly or LGBT-friendly places, policies, people, or institutions are those that are open and welcoming to gay or LGBT people. They typically aim to create an environment that is supportive, respectful, and non-judgmental towards the LGB ...
*
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term is a ...
*
LGBT culture
LGBT culture is a culture shared by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer individuals. It is sometimes referred to as queer culture (indicating people who are queer), while the term gay culture may be used to mean "LGBT culture" o ...
*
Out Now Consulting
*
Pink capitalism
Rainbow capitalism (also called pink capitalism, homocapitalism[Global homocap ...](_blank)
*
Pink Dollar
Pink money describes the purchasing power of the LGBT community, often especially with respect to political donations. With the rise of the gay rights movement, pink money has gone from being a fringe or marginalized market to a thriving industr ...
*
Pinkwashing
*
Project SCUM
Project SCUM was a plan proposed in 1995 by R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR) to sell cigarettes to members of the " alternative lifestyle" areas of San Francisco, in particular the large number of gay people in the Castro and hom ...
*
Queerbaiting
Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ+ representation. The purpose is to attract (" bait") an LGBTQ+ or straight ally audience with ...
References
External links
{{wiktionary, pinkwashing
CommercialCloset.org– Nonprofit with worldwide LGBT marketing information.
Gay Market News– covers latest news on gay marketing
Survey Reveals Gay Spending PowerCorporate America Taking Notice of GLBT MarketSurvey: Advertising Motivates Gay Consumers
LGBT and society
Marketing
Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
Marketing by target group