Automotive Advertising in the Gay Market

Pride and Prejudice - The Automotive Industry and "The Gays"

It wasn't that long ago that it was considered heresy to utter the words "gay" or "lesbian" in the halls of the world's automotive headquarters. It is amazing what a difference time and the efforts of a few daring people can make. Not only are automotive manufacturers recognizing the importance of providing safe and equitable work environments for their GLBT employees, a select few are courting them aggressively in print, TV, online and through grassroots efforts.

The GLBT Consumer - What the Data Says

The country is slowly acknowledging that the "gay movement" is far from detrimental to the fabric of society and in fact, adds color, texture and panache to the weave. This comfort level brings awareness which leads to curiosity and ultimately the desire to know more about the GLBT consumer. There has been anecdotal evidence of the purchasing power of this demographic but it wasn't until experienced researchers began focusing on the GLBT community did the real power of the market come to light.

The most quoted fact is that statistically, GLBT households have more disposable income. According to the recently updated analysis by Witeck-Combs Communications and Packaged Facts, the total buying power of the U.S. gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) adult population in 2008 is projected to be $712 billion.* That is an upward trend from $690 billion in 2007 and $450 Billion in 2004. From a pure purchasing power perspective, this is a desirable segment of the market.

Additional data shows that GLBT consumers are early adopters of technology, fiercely brand loyal and more recently, very interested in spending their money with companies that treat their own GLBT employees equally.

Data as a Catalyst for Change

The last point is the cornerstone of the founding of Gaywheels.com; the first automotive web site to target the GLBT consumer. The site is a full automotive resource with a twist: it classifies automotive brands as gay-friendly or not based on their corporate policies in the U.S.

Since its inception in June 2005, Gaywheels.com has raised the level of awareness on both sides of the automotive purchase equation. GLBT consumers are using the information to alter their research patterns and the manufacturers have realized the importance of providing an equitable work environment as well as reaching out to the GLBT consumer. In the three years since Gaywheels.com launched, two major automotive manufacturers have changed their corporate policies effectively putting 5 additional brands in the "gay-friendly" column.

They Have Cash But What Do They Drive?

The nature of Gaywheels.com allows data to be revealed that prior to its existence was difficult to gather. In July 2006, Gaywheels.com published its first Top 10 Most Researched vehicles list which for the first time shed light on what GLBT automotive consumers were researching. The information largely dispelled many stereotypes held as truth in marketing circles about the GLBT automotive buyer. Of the 10 vehicles that were the most popular on the inaugural list, only 1 was from a luxury brand. While convertibles were strongly represented, so were more mundane vehicles like the Toyota Camry and Yaris. This data seemed to support and dispel certain stereotypes about the GLBT community.

Each quarter since the first Top 10 list, Gaywheels.com has published their Most Researched data. The list tends to be self-perpetuating but new brands enter the ranks and the models surprise even the most educated researchers. The most recent list included six hatchbacks, four of which started under $16,000 - not exactly the high-end luxury cars that the stereotypes portray.

The History of Targeted Automotive Advertising

With all the data pointing to early adopter, brand loyal consumers, you'd assume that there would be fierce competition to advertise to and capture this audience. Unfortunately, it seems that until recently prejudice and lack of education have overruled business acumen in the decision to actively market to the GLBT consumer.

With that said, some automotive brands mirrored the early-adopter behavior of this demographic and started marketing the GLBT community as far back as 1994.

GM's Saab division was the first automotive company to advertise in the GLBT media but it was Subaru's efforts starting two years later that established that brand as the gay-friendly automotive brand. Subaru has been the most consistent auto company to market to the GLBT community and made the bold move to include GLBT imagery and messaging as part of the marketing strategy. It is no surprise then that Subaru has the highest brand recall for this segment.

Other brands followed Saab and Subaru's lead. VW, Jeep, Saturn, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and Cadillac have all placed general market ads in gay media but it was Ford's Jaguar, Volvo and Land Rover that were the first American-owned brands to place gay-specific ads that included GLBT messaging and imagery in both print and online.

The AFAtermath

Unfortunately, what is good for the goose isn't necessarily appetizing for the gander. The ads from Volvo, Lincoln and Jaguar were the catalyst for one of the most publicized and poorly handled PR blowups in recent history. While the GLBT media and consumers applauded the advertising - even awarding the Volvo campaign for its inclusion and messaging - a certain right-wing group took offense to the advertising. The "American Family Association" (AFA) called for a boycott of Ford Motor Company citing their support for the "homosexual agenda". Soon after, Ford announced that it would no longer advertise in gay media.

The AFA quickly took credit for Ford's cancellation of their advertising in GLBT media and Ford was oddly silent, neither confirming nor denying the AFA claim. Ford's response to the AFA, or lack thereof, set off a cyclone of contempt in both the mainstream and GLBT media. Ford finally made a statement and denied that their decision had anything to do with the AFA and claimed it was solely a financial decision.

From a PR perspective, Ford waited too long to make any statements and most likely lost some loyal GLBT consumers as a result. Some might also argue that the ads that caught the attention of the AFA in the first place were too politicized. Ford was donating money to the GLBT political action group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for every Volvo, Jaguar or Land Rover that was sold as a result of the ad campaign.

From a GLBT consumer's perspective, it was a great campaign. They were taking an extra step to support the community by donating to a widely known advocacy group. From purely marketing perspective, it was risky move that clearly hit the nerve of the AFA. All they saw was that Ford supported HRC and HRC = gay marriage. Like it or not, gay marriage is a very controversial topic with deep-seeded opposition with heavy religious overtones.

The controversy eventually blew over and when the AFA recently took credit for Ford's sales decline, it barely garnered mention. Unfortunately, the impact that this had on the psyche of automotive marketers is still in effect today. While brands are advertising in GLBT media, including Ford's Volvo, the messaging is not GLBT-specific. The same ads placed in The Advocate or Gaywheels.com show up in TIME or WSJ.com as well.

Importance and Impact of GLBT Imagery and Messaging

If you ask a gay consumer or someone involved in GLBT media if targeted ads are important, you will most likely receive an affirmative response. Surveys of GLBT consumers clearly show that the respondents prefer to "see themselves" in the advertising messages in media targeted to them. There is little empirical evidence to support this when it comes to automotive advertising but the one data point available is compelling.

In July - September of 2007 Gaywheels.com had two Saab ads running on the site. Both were the same size (300x250) and both featured the Saab 9-3. The first ad was targeted to U.S. customers only and featured a general market message that called out pricing and lease deals. The second ad was targeted to Canadian customers only and featured a GLBT-targeted message using the tagline of "Because not all roads are straight". The Canadian ad had a click-through rate 6x higher for the same time period than the general market ad targeted to the U.S. customer.

While the example above is not perfect, you have to consider geographic difference and the delta in audience size, it seems to support the published survey data that indicates a targeted message is more effective at reaching the GLBT consumer.

Gay Auto Outreach Today

As the competition for consumers gets more intense and technology makes niche marketing more effective, smart companies are increasing their exposure in GLBT media. The automotive companies are far from leading this charge but are definitely in the game when it comes to reaching out the gay demographic. While no U.S.-targeted advertising currently incorporates GLBT-specific messaging and imagery, the auto companies are being more consistent in their ad buys and have branched out to include sponsorships, grassroots promotions and ancillary support of the GLBT community.

General Motors has been the leader in this segment in the recent past. In addition to advertising in magazines like GENRE and THE ADVOCATE, their Saab, Saturn and Cadillac brands have engaged the gay consumer in other ways.

Cadillac is the official sponsor of vignettes on LOGO, the largest GLBT channel on cable. Saturn has worked with Gaywheels.com in sponsoring Gay Pride events in the Southeast and all three brands were recently featured in a speed-dating event at Motor City Pride in Detroit. GM has also held targeted events for GLBT media and has been very consistent in their message of inclusion and support.

Their approach is admirable in that it has long-term goals and it is continually seeking new methods of messaging the GLBT consumer. Other than past efforts by Subaru, no other major auto company is approaching this market in the same way.

Working from the Inside Out

Most coverage of the automotive companies' marketing to the gay consumer focuses on the marketing itself - the ad, the sponsorship, the event. While they are very important, very few have looked at the importance of creating brand advocates from within the organizations themselves.

HRC has something called the Corporate Equality Index (CEI) with ranks companies on their corporate polices. While a site like Gaywheels.com simply uses the availability of same-sex domestic partner benefits to classify a company as gay-friendly, HRC's CEI uses a more complex formula to rank those companies on a scale of 0-100. Six major auto makers have achieved a perfect score of 100 - Toyota, GM, Ford, VW, Subaru and Chrysler. Two of those have done even more to ensure their employees have an equitable place to work.

Both Toyota and GM have strong internal employee resource groups that are supported by management. These organizations provide an internal "voice" for all the GLBT employees within the organization and act as a valuable resource for management to ensure that their external and internal messaging are in-sync.

These groups also advise HR and Marketing on the importance of recruiting and marketing their respective companies to potential employees and customers. Both Toyota and GM have been active supporters of the Out & Equal conference and of NGLJA.

Ford and Chrysler have internal groups but have not been as active in the past few years.

Future Outreach

The future of GLBT automotive advertising is difficult to predict but it is sure to mirror mainstream trends in the move to online and video. As gay media outlets become more pervasive and support for targeting this demographic increase from within the auto companies, more brands will join the early adopters and include GLBT media in their buys. The smart brands will realize that they need not fear GLBT-specific messaging and imagery and that the payoff is far more lucrative than any imagined backlash.

Article by Joe LaMuraglia - GayWheels.com



Automotive companies with strong diversity initiatives for gay & lesbian employees include:

Company CEI Rating* Fortune 500 Rating
Toyota Motor Sales, USA 100
Subaru 100
Chrysler 100
General Motors 100 3
Ford 100 7
Volkswagen of America 100
Visteon Corp. 95 219
Bridgestone Tires 80
Avis Budget Group 60 405
Nissan North America 50
Delphi Corp. 45 83
Cooper Tire & Rubber 33 701
Navistar Intl Corp 30
Lear Corp 20 130
Dana Corp 20 255

CEI Rating: HRC Corporate Equality Index is a tool to measure how equitably companies are treating their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors.


Gay and Lesbian Social Networking Advertising - Marketing - Community

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Spotlight on Gay Toronto 2008

Made famous by Showtime’s Queer as Folk, Toronto has one of the strongest gay & lesbian communities in all of Canada. The first, Church Street, between Gloucester and Carlton Streets, has some of the most famous gay bars and establishments including Woody’s & Sailor, Zelda’s and Priape. Additional gay neighborhoods developing in Toronto include the College/Parliament area and College West.

In terms of business, including finance, tourism and advertising, Toronto is one of the primary business centers of Canada with an incredibly diverse population from all over the world. Toronto also has a very mixed community in terms of age, with a large population of young people attracted to the region’s universities including the University of Toronto adjacent to Church Street.

Toronto has taken some strong steps in marketing itself to the GLBT community, including hosting the IGLTA Convention in 2009. Tourism Toronto is also making outreach in marketing to the gay & lesbian community. With gay marriage now legal in Toronto and the entire province of Ontario, many of these campaigns have focused not only on some of the arts & entertainment aspects of the city, but also some of the newly-developed gay wedding and marriage services now offered in Toronto.

Popular bars and clubs include Woody’s & Sailor, one of the true anchors of Church Street, Fly, Crews & Tango, The Barn and Stable, Byz Bar and Bar 501. Of course, let’s not forget Remingtons, the local strip club that is famous the world over for their beautiful erotic dancers from all over Canada. For a mix of night club, dance bar and entertainment space, there’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, one of the more enjoyable venues year round.

In terms of restaurants, Zelda’s has become a regular fixture on Church Street, sporting the most festive and entertaining dining environments in the neighborhood. There’s always some theme or show going on at Zelda’s! Other restaurants and cafés have been opening up on Church St. lately, including those with a pub environment, Thai restaurants and the more traditional Café California, right next door to Zelda’s. On the east side of Church Street, we have Fire (part of Fly), Byzantium and Il Fornello.

In the print media, Toronto has two major publications, the Xtra! And Fab. Xtra! has been part of Toronto’s gay & lesbian community since 1971. Founded as Pink Triangle Press, they now have offices in Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver, publishing the larger newspaper format publications Capital Xtra, Xtra and Xtra West. Fab Magazine, launching more than ten years ago onto the Toronto publishing scene, focuses more on the local club scene and entertainment and sports a glossy cover in a magazine-sized format.

Two other publications with a presence in Toronto include About Magazine, covering Western New York and Southern Ontario, and Outlooks Magazine, covering Canada coast-to-coast.

In terms of gay tourism publications, Toronto has the local Toronto Gay FunMap, providing both an advertiser-supported, detailed gay map of Toronto and coupons for local gay/gay-friendly businesses in the Toronto area.

On the Internet, several web sites stand out. GayGuideToronto.com is one of the best regional web portals serving the gay & lesbian community online. Primarily editorial in nature, this site also has a strong gay business directory as well. GayCanada.com, although covering all of Canada, has a strong Toronto section featuring both a gay business directory and online personals, allowing gay men to meet each other online.

One of the first gay & lesbian television stations in North America to launch was Out TV, featuring a wide variety of gay content. In addition, ProudFM is a recent GLBT radio station launch, celebrating their 1st year of operation in 2008.

In business, Toronto is interesting in that it is covered by a variety of gay business associations. Starting with the Church Wellesley Village BIA, a network of shops, restaurants and bars on Church Street, Toronto also has The Fraternity Professional Social Club, offering professional gay men monthly meetings with guest speakers, discount movie and theatre nights, entrepreneur activities and community social events. At the province level, there’s the Ontario Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, bringing together the entire province’s GLBT business community with networking events and professional development opportunities. Lastly, at the national level, there’s the Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (CGLCC), based in Toronto. Working together with the Ontario Gay Chamber and other gay & lesbian chambers throughout Canada, the CGLCC is more of a broad-based coalition, focusing on some of the bigger picture issues that can help all of the Canadian gay & lesbian chambers from Vancouver to Montreal.

An incredible network considering most regions are fortunate to have just one gay & lesbian business association!

Toronto, as an advertising center for Canada, also has a local gay & lesbian focused advertising and marketing agency, Wilde Marketing. Focusing on helping corporate clients reach the gay & lesbian community, Wilde Marketing has grown over the past few years and sports a healthy client roster.

Larger corporations with a history of strong diversity initiatives for their gay & lesbian employees include TD Bank and CIBC Bank, to name a few.

In the world of events, Toronto has some of the largest gay events in North America. Inside Out is the local Toronto gay & lesbian film festival, held annually. Toronto Pride is by far one of the largest and most dynamic pride festivals celebrations found in the US and Canada, attracting close to 1 million revelers from around the world. Other smaller events include Folsom Street North, a more recent event for Toronto’s leather and fetish community, and the infamous Mr. Leatherman Toronto Competition.

In terms of both business meetings and business travel, there are three properties in the Church Street area that stand out. One of the more intimate places to both stay and hold a smaller, pleasant reception and indoor presentation is the Gloucester Square Inn. Featuring not only high-speed Internet access, this property has a wonderful reception area and an indoor meeting space designed for business environments. In addition, the local Courtyard by Marriott and Delta Chelsea hotels offer excellent accommodations, spacious meeting rooms and are centrally located with easy access.

Lastly, Toronto has a variety of gay & lesbian community services including the People With AIDS Foundation, the Gay West Community Network Centre, the 519 Church Street Community Centre, and the Casey House, an AIDS hospice.

INTERNET

RADIO

TELEVISION

PRINT

EVENTS

BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONS

BUSINESS ACCOMMODATIONS

ADVERTISING

ORGANIZATIONS


Gay and Lesbian Social Networking Advertising - Marketing - Community

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Check out our blog at:
http://themostsearched.blogspot.com

NOTE: This article is part of the Gay Market Report 2009 and is FREE TO USE as long as byline above, credit, logo and link are included with story. Credit Pink Banana Media, www.PinkBananaMedia.com/MarketReport/, and please use the following logo linked below:
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Advanced Online Marketing

Integrating banner advertising with blogs & editorial, social networking, and search engine optimization

Now I could start here by simply outlining how to reach gay people on Facebook, MySpace, Blogs or even banner advertising, but I won’t. Rather, I would like to illustrate how all of these components can now fit together into one complete online marketing solution, using some of the most advanced concepts in online marketing today and designed to maximize a campaign’s online reach, its effectiveness and its bottom line.

In summary, your starting point becomes a “story to tell” (we define this as EDITORIAL) about your organization, product or service. The most common stories to tell are either educational or entertaining in nature. Examples of editorial are endless… if you’re a destination, you could blog about local restaurants that have just opened, local events happening in your area, etc. If you are a wedding planner, doing stories about wedding tips and resources, as well as current news & topics related to your genre of weddings or weddings in your area would be perfect. If you’re an online dating company, doing stories related to “how to meet your perfect match online” would be great (educational) as well as perhaps doing a photo and editorial coverage of someone’s first date… especially of two people who met through your site!

You then take that editorial, break it up into bite-size pieces, and integrate it online through a blog you develop just for marketing your company. You also try your best to get those blog entries included in other, like-minded blogs as well. This happens by first starting your blog, and then working individually with each blog you want to have a closer working relationship with, making outreach to them and beginning the process of cross-promotion through either links or even using each other’s blog entries on a case-by-case basis (normally you wouldn’t use their entire blog entry, but rather you would summarize it and link directly to their blog entry). This process would be spread out over the course of the year, to keep your editorial current and fresh in the public’s eye. You should also adapt this editorial to become its own standalone story, for use on content- and community-based websites. Of course, with all components of this editorial, full links back to your website are a must.

Using some of the latest viral features found online, including Digg.com and Plaxo.com, as well as social networking features found on Facebook and MySpace, you’re able to distribute this editorial far and wide on the Internet. The more this editorial is distributed, the higher your website’s search engine ranking becomes since each story and blog entry has a direct link to your website. You would also be encouraged to post this story on your own website as well as link to the blog and the Facebook and MySpace pages you have created.

As part of this overall marketing effort, we would also encourage the use of photos and perhaps video, to increase the overall viral nature of this campaign and to maximize its effectiveness in the social networking space.

Any banner ad or e-mail campaign you do should then include this editorial as part of the advertising package, and you should focus on website partners with strong search engine positioning for the search term key word phrases that best match your organization. So consider it Banner Advertising PLUS!

At first you may be thinking this sounds ludicrous, but it’s not. With more established print publications, this may be a difficult request for them to handle, but in the online world, you are spending the money here and this editorial, normally in the story format, is integral to your advertising campaign. Without it and you’re missing out on a very key component of your campaign’s success online. One of the lasting benefits of this type of online marketing campaign is the “long tail” feature of your editorial online. Long after this campaign has concluded, the editorial, with the logos, banners and links to your website, continue on with their search engine positioning, continuing to drive traffic to your website for years to come.



Components
Facebook
  • Facebook Group
    The best place to start on Facebook is by creating a group. A group is an entity that members of the social networking site can join. An owner of a group can post pictures, information, videos, events and send mass communication to all members of the group.
    • Showcase lots of your organization’s photos
    • Take videos highlighting your organization to upload
    • Encourage / seek out users to upload photos and videos
    • Post a lot of items
      • Events (see ‘Facebook Events’ section)
      • YouTube videos highlighting your organization or of similar theme
      • News Articles
      • Stories / Blogs
    • Encourage discussions on the discussion board
    • Increase membership to the group
      • Post things regularly to appear in member feeds
      • Make the group dynamic enough to have members post to their profile / become engaged
    • The group will be the focal point of the GLBT facet of your organization on Facebook
  • Facebook Fan Page
    A fan page is a good way for businesses to post information about their organization and allow users to become “Fans” of the organization. It is very much like a limited group. The point of having a fan page would be to just serve as another outlet people could tap into, become fans of and increase your organizations’ visibility. Content would be updated mainly in the group and some would trickle over to the fan page. It is also easy to integrate a blog into the Fan Page (see ‘Blog’ section)

  • Facebook Events
    Events are essential ways to let people know what’s going on with your organization. Every time an event is on the horizon, post it on Facebook, show photos and videos from previous years and attach it to your Fan Page and Group. Then, people can choose whether or not they are going to attend the event.
    • Invite people in a steady stream to increase visibility on people’s feeds
    • Send updates about the event so the people who are attending are consistently reminded of it and will be more enthusiastic about inviting friends
    • Create a dynamic page with photos and videos to incite excitement for the event

MySpace
If you already have a business MySpace page in place (many organizations do), use the above information related to Facebook to keep this content updated on MySpace as well. If not, create a business MySpace page and have at it.

Blogs
A blog is an important way to get lots of information out to consumers about your product or service. A consistently updated, interesting blog will appear in web searches, could be viewed by a large number of people and will serve as a very beneficial tool for the destination. Blogs are quickly becoming replacements to guide books and more stale information found online.

The blog should consist of both original content as well as content (editorial, photos and videos) found online related to your organization. You should have someone dedicated to this, part-time, to keep this blog up-to-date. There should be a variety of different segments to entice readers. For instance, using Palm Springs as an example, having a segment every other Wednesday highlighting a new restaurant in Palm Springs will show one side of the destination and people into cuisine will quickly learn to tune in every other Wednesday. The same can be done for nightlife, attractions, etc. Thinking outside of the box is a huge asset here. Some of these ways could be interviewing a new Palm Springs resident a week to provide some local flavor, finding tourists once a week who can give an account of their trip and doing very uniquely Palm Springs things consistently will give a broad-view of the destination.

The goal is to provide rich, dynamic and interesting information. This blog should make people excited about your organization, it should teach them something new, it should be something they want to share with friends and it should really make them think about your organization when they’re not reading the blog.

The blog will normally, by default, include an RSS feed which can be utilized in a third party site. It can then be fed into Facebook’s Fan Page, links will be posted to the Group, and the code can be utilized on a number of different sites including MySpace. People will also be able to elect to receive blog e-mail updates and download it to their RSS readers like Microsoft Outlook so they are constantly updated. That, along with the Google searches, will paste this blog all over the Internet and become the premiere place of GLBT information for your organization. Lastly, ping the blog using Technorati.com.

Story
Elements of this constantly updated blog should be adapted into a story about your organization. Each story written should have a different focus (i.e., gay friendly restaurants in Palm Springs, gay walking tour of Palm Springs, etc.). These stories can then be posted online through a variety of sources (including Digg.com, Newsvine.com and others) and can be utilized as part of any banner ad or e-mail campaign your organization undertakes.

Photos
As part of the local editorial process for obtaining good blog content, you should also hire local photographers to submit event photos for inclusion online. The photos would be primarily group shots of individuals, whereby these photos could then be posted online in either Picasa or Flickr or any other social photo website, and then included as part of the blog. You should also utilize these photos for use on the Facebook Group, tagging the photos to increase their overall viral nature.

Videos
Additionally, you could also find local individuals who can shoot and edit video for your organization, posting this video on Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Using YouTube, you could then develop a special YouTube Channel dedicated to your organization.

The video would not be a high-quality video production, but rather, it would be shot in “blog” format, creating snippets of video content less than 10 minutes in length which can be utilized best in an online format.

In summarizing this Advanced Online Advertising section, it’s important to understand the big picture… you are starting with content in a variety of formats (snippets of content in the form of blogs, longer form content in the form of stories, photographs and video) and utilizing that content to put your organization, product or service in front of where your customer’s eyeballs are continually migrating to online. Such a campaign puts you in front of those eyeballs by providing your organization top-level exposure in:
  • Search engines such as Google (for those not sure which sites to start with)
  • Community and content-based websites (for those who do know where they like to start)
  • Blogs (for those who employ a variety of methods to stay up-to-the-minute and current on their favorite topics)
  • Social Networking sites such as Facebook (for those who are staying current with their friends and the companies, products and services that are of specific interest to them)
  • Video sites such as YouTube (for those who enjoy personal, shorter form video entertainment)





Gay and Lesbian Social Networking
Advertising - Marketing - Community

For the full-color PDF version of this story, go here:
http://www.PinkBananaMedia.com/pdf/gmg2009-AdvancedOnlineMarketing.pdf

To subscribe to the PBM Monthly Gay Business Report, go here:
http://www.PinkBananaMedia.com/BusinessReport/

For the annual PBM Gay Market Report, go here:
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Spotlight on Gay San Francisco 2008

In terms of gay friendly U.S. cities San Francisco is most likely to rank at the top of anyone’s list. The city, however, is more than just an ally to the gay community, rather, its politics and culture have been drastically shaped by a long history of GLBT community involvement. With nearly 500,000 in attendance at last year’s Pride Parade and an average local age of 31, San Francisco’s gay and lesbian community is large, predominantly young, and very political, establishing the city as a virtual “Gay Mecca.”

Though the entire city is considered a home to the gay community, the heart of GLBT life and history really begins in the Castro. Having been first settled by gay men back in the 1970’s, this 14-square-block area, named for its location along the famed Castro St. thoroughfare, has come to be seen as a symbol of gay American culture. Numerous annual events take place there and a variety of gay historical landmarks attract visitors from all around the world. The Castro Street Fair, now in its 32nd year, takes place in September and is one of the community’s largest annual events. Outdoor dancing, live performances, arts and crafts, food and beverages, and a variety of Bay Area vendors are a few of the fair’s highlights. Another important September event is the Folsom Street Fair. An unparalleled event catering specifically to the leather and bear communities, the Folsom Street Fair has been raising community awareness and funding for charities for over 22 years. It has an attendance of 300,000 yearly and is known as the premiere leather event in the US. In addition, the Dore Ally Street Fair, considered smaller sibling to the Folsom Street Fair and produced by the same volunteer nonprofit corporation, SMMILE, has become an increasingly popular event among leather enthusiasts. It is located in the South of Market (SoMa) district off of Folsom St. between 9th and 10th, and occurs every year in the last weekend of July. A relatively recent event to hit San Francisco, also in September, is the Love Parade. Having originated and been hugely popular in Berlin, Germany, this US version of the street parade is a youthful and eclectic mix of GLBT and heterosexual dance music/rave scene enthusiasts. Moreover, while it has only been in the US for two years, attendance and awareness, as well as the number of major sponsors, have been increasing.

Hands down, however, the largest gay event in the city, and one of the largest in the world for that matter, is San Francisco Pride. Bringing together over half a million gays and lesbians, Pride lasts the entire month of June, while the main attractions, the parade and festival, take place typically in the last weekend of the month. What’s more is that outside of being a charitable event which raises over $130,000 for GLBT causes, Pride is also a significant economic resource for city tourism. In just visiting the San Francisco Convention and Visitor’s Bureau website, it is evident that gay tourism and travel are crucial to the city’s businesses and economic life. As the only niche targeted group on the site, the gay community is considered a key consumer of city resources.

Also an important player in the economic life of San Francisco is the Golden Gate Business Association (GGBA). The GGBA began as the nation's first business organization founded by gay and lesbian entrepreneurs and for over thirty years has built a community of excellent LGBT businesses with significant value for the economy. Aside from providing members with networking and mentoring opportunities, informal business advice, and business leads and referrals, the GGBA has also had an influential voice in both the Office of the Mayor and the members of the Board of Supervisors. Additionally, the GGBA’s latest venture has been the launch of their new Tourism Advisory Program (TAP), a coordinated cooperative campaign designed to attract GLBT tourists to the city. Furthermore, some other notable business groups operating in or close to the San Francisco region include the Bay Area Community of Women (BACW), the Russian River Chamber of Commerce, and the Rainbow Chamber of Commerce in San Jose.

Local companies with strong diversity initiatives for gay & lesbian employees include:

CompanyCEI Rating* Fortune 500 Rating
AAA Northern California
100

Adobe Systems
100 727
Advanced Micro Devices
80
407
Agilent Technologies
100 387
Apple Computer
100 121
Applied Materials
93 274
Calpine Corp.
48
344
Charles Schwab Corp.
100 389
Chevron Corp.
100 4
Cisco Systems
100 77
Clorox 100 475
Electronic Arts
100 658
Gap Inc.
100 144
Genentech 100
Google
100
241
Hewlett Packard
100
14
Intel Corp.
100
62
Intuit
100
776
Kaiser Permanente
100

Kimpton Hotels
100

Levi Strauss & Co.
100
510
Olivia
95

Oracle Corp.
100
167
PG&E
100
196
Safeway Inc.
75
56
Southern California Edison
95

Sun Microsystems
100
187
Symantec
85
515
Visa International
100

Wells Fargo
100
41
Yahoo
100
357


CEI Rating: HRC Corporate Equality Index is a tool to measure how equitably companies are treating their gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors.


In terms of print, San Francisco has five strong GLBT publications. The Bay Area Reporter is the city’s oldest and largest local newspaper of record serving the GLBT communities. It began in 1971 and is published every Thursday by Benro Enterprises, Inc. and is distributed in San Francisco and surrounding cities of the Bay Area, as well as 20 other US cities. The East Bay Voice and the San Francisco Bay Times are two other popular local papers geared specifically towards gay and lesbian news and entertainment. The San Francisco Bay Guardian, though not a gay paper, is an independent and locally owned news and entertainment source with a heavy slant towards alternative and gay lifestyles. For something more light and focused on the local nightlife or bar scene, Gloss Magazine is an excellent resource. It is printed every other Friday, 26 times a year, and is delivered to bars, restaurants, nightclubs, hotels, bookstores, health clubs, coffee houses, retail outlets, and youth centers in over 250 different locations including San Francisco, San Jose, the East Bay, Sacramento, the Russian River, and West Hollywood. Also, though operating out of San Jose, Out Now magazine is a popular gay community guide to entertainment. Finally, it should also be noted that a few other important national media companies and publications, such as PlanetOut Partners and Curve Magazine, are all operated out of San Francisco.

As for San Francisco’s nightlife and gay social scene there are a number of different hot spots. Of course many of the staples can be found on the Castro, off either Castro or Market St., such as Badlands, Midnight Sun, Harvey’s, The Cafe, and The Bar. Others, such as Martini’s, a piano bar, Metro, with its more casual atmosphere, and Mecca, an upscale trendy lounge, can also be found in the area. Off of Folsom St. and the area surrounding are a mix of some of San Francisco’s most famous bear and leather bars as well as popular dance clubs and college bars. Between 7th and 10th on Folsom or Bryant St. is where most of the bear/leather bars can be found, such as Powerhouse. Other Folsom bars though include the Eagle Tavern, whose clientele are part bear, part edgy queer punks, The Stud, where all the college kids come to dance, and the End Up, whose name implies it all as this dance spot opens Friday and doesn’t close its doors till Monday morning!

On the other side of town, however, near Polk Street, is one of the other founding gay regions of the city. Here, many of the hotels catering to the gay and lesbian community can be found, as there are mostly small B&Bs in the Castro area such as the 24 Henry Guest House and the Parker House. In San Francisco overall, there are several larger hotels catering strongly to the gay & lesbian community, including the Renoir Hotel, the Handlery Union Square Hotel, Pan Pacific Hotel, Cartwright Hotel on Union Square and the entire chain of Kimpton Hotels and Joie de Vivre Hotels, based in San Francisco.

Again, since San Francisco has such a large and diverse gay population, it is impossible to examine all or most of the ways in which the gay community interacts with its local businesses and organizations, however, there are a few more important aspects to note. First of all, San Francisco’s art scene has always been something which separates it from most other cities. The National Queer Arts Festival in June is a month long celebration of the community’s contribution to the arts and American culture. Another event, The San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, presented by Frameline, is a huge production now in its 30th year. Even still, there is a strong local theater culture where companies such as SteinBeck Presents perform shows that directly express the lives and art of the gay community. Finally, the San Francisco LGBT Community Center has been a newer yet welcomed addition to the gay community using its resources to help bring together the community and aid those in need. In all, San Francisco is a city with a strong gay history and tradition whose unique blend of urban gay men and women both appreciate and respect their roots while continually staying at the forefront of an ever evolving culture.

PRINT
Bay Area Reporter: www.ebar.com
East Bay Voice: www.eastbayvoice.com
San Francisco Bay Times: www.sfbaytimes.com
San Francisco Bay Guardian: www.sfbayguardian.com
Gloss Magazine: www.sfgloss.com
Out Now: www.outnowmag.com (San Jose)
INTERNET
www.CastroOnline.com
www.gaysonoma.com
www.sfgay.org
www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/gaytravel/
www.gaysf.net
www.sanfranciscogay.com
RADIO
Energy 92.7: www.energy927fm.com
EVENTS
Castro Street Fair: www.castrostreetfair.org
Folsom Street Fair: www.folsomstreetfair.com
San Francisco Pride: www.sfpride.org
San Jose Pride: www.sjgaypride.com
Dyke March: www.dykemarch.org
National Queer Arts Festival: www.queerculturalcenter.org
Frameline Film Festival: www.Frameline.org
BUSINESS ASSOCIATIONS
Golden Gate Business Association: www.ggba.com
Rainbow Chamber of Commerce: www.rainbowchamber.org
Russian River Chamber of Commerce: www.GayRussianRiver.com
ORGANIZATIONS
San Francisco LGBT Community Center: www.SFCenter.org
Different Light Books: www.adlbooks.com





Gay and Lesbian Social Networking
Advertising - Marketing - Community

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June 2008 Gay Business Report

In This Issue

Buying Power of Gay Men & Lesbians in 2008
Marketers, economists and journalists often puzzle over guesstimating the purchasing power of America's gay and lesbian households. Some tend to ballyhoo the gay market as a dream market precisely because of its presumed affluence. But is it really true? Over the past several years, we've given this question considerable thought and research. We conclude that projections of gay wealth are likely overstated or simply a flat misconception, and therefore we come to rely most often on the excellent analysis conducted by economist and academic Dr. Lee Badgett and the work of the Williams Institute at UCLA....

PressPassQ.com Feature Story
The year of the lesbian: Female journalists welcome findings in Lesbian Consumer Index, but wonder where to go from here
Is 2008 the year of the lesbian? San Francisco-based Community Marketing Inc. seems to think so - and the firm has published a study to prove it. In fact, many women working for GLBT media have witnessed first-hand - and often played a role in themselves - the increased power lesbians have in terms of media presence and purchasing power. What is particularly important about the “Lesbian Consumer Index” is that market research to date has focused on the collective gay and lesbian community. The new index is the first of its kind to differentiate lesbian purchasing power and preferences from those of gay men....

Spotlight on San Francisco
Featuring a fully updated summary of GLBT life in San Francisco, from a business perspective. Focusing on the ever-growing number of companies now scoring a perfect 100 on the HRC Corporate Equality Index, as well as the variety of resources available in this region supporting both the smaller GLBT business community and those corporations wishing to target the GLBT consumer.


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