This is a new ad by McDonald’s running in France. It deals with the time before the coming-out, a time with a lot of secrets. This is time is also representing McDonald’s way of dealing with LGBT topics in this spot very well. I do not expect a “gay in your face”-spot, but this is just “lurking”. You really have to follow the storyline to get it. I guess that in the U.S. this would be something progressive, but in middle Europe, this is a bit boring. On the other hand, every organisation is welcome to deal with LGBT-topics and especially McDonald’s will reach many young people with this spot, who are in the same situation as the boy. And maybe this is just the first step to a more progressive campaign.
There is always a lot of criticism and concerns, when the LGBT rights movement and commerce meet. Especially in queer and gender study essays, you find a fear of a sell-out of the movement. But if we look back in current gay history, we can see, that the LGBT movement and commercialization walked hand in hand. In two simple formulas: more gay rights = more gay commerce and more gay commerce = more gay rights. But why is this so? This could be answered with “visibility” and “acceptance”. Before the gay rights movement came up, homosexuals were simply not visible as a target group for businesses, because they had to hide due to backward legislation. The gay rights movement lead to a change of this laws, which lead also to more acceptance in the public. This acceptance is also important for businesses. Even nowadays some companies are afraid of being identified LGBT-friendly, mainly because this could scare of conservative customer groups. Fortunately, many companies are open to gay customers today. In my opinion, this is also a benefit for the community, since advertisements for LGBT lead to more visibility in public and, again to more acceptance.
In the best case, a company does not only try to make new gay customers, but also support the causes of the LGBT movement itself. Yes, I mean with money. Let´s face the truth, this movement needs money. An example was the whole anti-gay propaganda around Prop 8. We can only fight this media-dirt-campaigns with own campaigns and constitutional lawsuits. Both are very expensive.
One example, where commercial interests and support of gay rights meet, is parship. Parship is Europe’s leading dating service for people in search for a serious relationship. There is a straight version of parship, but also gay-parship. Below you find their latest advertisement for gay-parship. The main difference of this dating service is, that the members are aiming for a serious, long-term relationship. For many gay and lesbian couples, the last step, an equal marriage is still missing. This is also the topic of the head line “In love, engaged and now?”. To make an equal marriage finally possible and not only some second class civil partnership, parship supports “The Whit Knot”, a non-profit organization, which was founded in response to Prop 8 in November 2008.
The rainbow flag is – together with the pink triangle – the most used symbol of the LGBT movement since 1970´s. It is a sign for protest and pride, but is also used as symbol for gay businesses. When marketeers discovered the gay niche, it became also prominent sign in ad campaigns.
Some of the most famous ads with the rainbow flag are done by Absolut Vodka.
I think, that it is important for a successful campaign to use the rainbow in a creative way and to integrate this symbol with regards to the content of the ad. Samsung used the flag in a more or less uncreative ad this March.
We can also find the rainbow flag in ads of medium sized businesses, since since gay marketing is also profitable for smaller and local businesses. This ad is maybe a bit amateurish in its execution, but the elements are well chosen. Especially clever is the use of the “sister sledge” song, which maybe also indicates, that this is an LGBT-owned business. The rainbow is integrated in its natural form.
This professional ad by a local car dealer is interlacing the rainbow theme very well with the head line (German: “Schon Frühlingsgefühle” = English: “Already spring fever”). On the one hand refer the butterflies to spring (when they appear again in general), on the other does the proverb “butterflies in one´s stomach” also exist in German language (Schmetterlinge im Bauch haben). This proverb again in its meaning close to “spring fever”, both are about falling in love. So the rainbow colored butterflies are a symbol for homosexual love. Of course is spring also referring to the the product, a cabriolet. You see the interlacing of this add is very tight and working on many levels.
Volkswagen is aiming for gay customers for a longer time. Their advertisements are of high quality and very clever.
The first advertisement is from last years spring. “Frühlingsgefühle” is similar to the English expression “spring fever”. At first glance, the viewer (I did at least) could consider this ad to be mass marketing. Spring fever refers to the fact that this is a cabriolet. The second view reveals, that there are to guys in the car. Two guys with spring fever.
The current ad is more sassy. The head line “Und auf welchen stehen Sie?” means translated “And into which one are you?”. It is surely more into your face than last years ad, but is still surprising. I also like the fact, that this ad has sport as a setting and helps to get rid of the myth, that homosexuals are not into soccer.
Volkswagen is also tackling other niches like Turkish-speaking people: Read more here
I think that everybody, who is dealing with gay markting, knows the problem about reliable data about our target group. Out Now – a leading lesbian and gay marketing specialist agency – will conduct survey on the LGBT market. The survey will spann 16 countries where 1.1 billion people live – 52 million of them being LGBT people.
This will become a blog about gay marketing as the title indicates. I will focus on advertisement from different countries, since this was and is one of my main study objects. German advertisement will get a lot attention, because I am German.
But why all this? Because there is a lack of research in this area and I hope to interest more people and especially academics for gay marketing.
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