Archive for March, 2007

A Better Blog

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J0414028You may have noticed that we’ve made some changes to the functionality of the Out Front Blog. We’re now nearly seven months old, and we’ve noticed in our brief time in the blogosphere that there are some things we should do to make this blog even easier to use. Here’s a quick summary of the changes we’ve made: 

• We’ve added a “subscribe by email” feature (in the upper right hand corner) for those of you who don’t want to use the RSS feature, but who do want the ability to be notified regularly of our latest posts

• We’ve add photos (no comment!) of the three main bloggers (just visit our bio pages via the links on the left-side column) and a list of all of our posts by blogger so that you can easily view what we’ve written

• We’ve added two months to the calendar archive feature on the home page (right-side column) so that you can more easily locate a post from this month or the previous two months, just by clicking on the day of the post on the calendar

• We’ve added a new Q&A features section (also on the right-side column) that lists all of our past Q&As in one place (we’re up to nearly a dozen now); they’re listed by interviewee name, which should make it easy to find the one you’re looking for or just to read what some of the leading lights in the world of gay and lesbian communications have to say

We hope you like the new, improved Out Front Blog. And we hope you’ll let us know what you think of these changes and additional changes you believe we should consider to make it an even better blog.

| March 30th, 2007 1 Comment »
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Teenagers comfortable in their own Skins

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I have talked on this blog before (read post here) about some of the groundbreaking television produced by Channel 4. The broadcaster famously pushed the boundaries of British TV when it brought Queer As Folk to our screens almost a decade ago. It also showed the first lesbian kiss on a British soap, and most recently broadcast a series of programming labelled “Gay Week” designed to cover gay issues for teenagers.

One of it’s latest flagship series, shown on it’s sexy sister entertainment channel E4, is teen drama Skins. It followed the fictional lives of a group of teenagers growing up in Bristol, and starred Nicholas Hoult from the movie About a Boy.

This has been very cleverly marketed with a smart viral campaign and a highly interactive MySpace page to reflect the lifestyle of the characters and the show’s target audience.

The main characters have also featured on the front covers of both attitude and axm magazines.

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| March 29th, 2007 No Comments »

Redefining home

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J0411675The 2000 U.S. Census found that gay or lesbian households were reported in 99 percent of this country’s counties. While some cities are considered “gay meccas,” many in our community today are setting up households, raising families and even retiring outside the traditional urban jungle.

The current issue of leading LGBT news magazine The Advocate includes an extensive article on the 10 best places for openly gay and lesbian families and singles-as well as emerging trends related to these locales.

The publication considered the quality of public schools, retirement communities and condos, an integrated sense of community and the quality of environment for raising children.  The article looks at reasons each city made the list and census information — including median household income and quotes from locals, business owners and political figures who tout their city’s achievements in fostering a gay-friendly community.   

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| March 28th, 2007 No Comments »
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Gay & Lesbian Convention & Visitors Bureau Launches

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Berlin_rainbow_mark_pimble_photoOur friends at Community Marketing, Inc. last week launched the Gay & Lesbian Convention & Visitors Bureau, a new LGBT travel and tourism program they’ve dubbed the “Global Crossroads of LGBT Conferences, Meetings and Events.” The program is powered by a new Web site that highlights their travel and tourism partners in this new program – American Airlines and Kimpton Hotels are front and center along with several national and local tourism bureaus that market to our community – and describes the resources the effort brings to bear on behalf of its clients. The site is chock-full of resources, research and information that should be really useful to communicators, marketers and companies interested in, or already engaged in, this market.

This program is a great idea and I think they’ll have a lot of success in putting all of their resources in one place for other marketers to review and consider. 

For me, the most interesting part of the site (beyond the GLCVB Media Partners page which lists Fleishman-Hillard as a resource and links to our Web site), is the listing on the home page that outlines the “qualifications” for travel partners:

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| March 27th, 2007 No Comments »
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MTV brings gay rights fight to your backyard

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ClMTV & LOGO are extending their first-class outreach to the LGBT community to your backyard by sponsoring “True Colors,” a 15-city concert featuring LGBT celebrity icons and advocates to promote gay rights. 

LOGO got it right by choosing Cyndi Lauper to be out in front of the event. Lauper’s LGBT advocacy work most recently included presenting an award for excellence in inclusion of LGBT individuals in mainstream advertising campaigns to MTV Networks and LOGO at Commercial Closet Association’s Corporate Visionary Honors Ceremony in November 2006. 

I was lucky enough to meet Miss Lauper at the event and hear her speak first hand about her affection for her LGBT fans.  During her speech about MTV Networks at the Corporate Visionary Honors, Lauper highlighted the work MTV and LOGO have done for Gen-Y by showing LGBTs in a “true” way, (perhaps at the same time paying homage to her gay anthem “True Colors”).

Margaret Cho, Deborah Harry, and Rufus Wainwright are also scheduled to be on stage during the tour. Wrist bands with the words “Erase Hate” will be handed out by the Matthew Shepard Organization and a dollar from every ticket sold will be donated to the HRC.

Isaiah Washington showed the world the amount of negative press resulting from defamatory remarks against the LGBT community. With the announcement of this tour, Lauper is reaping the benefits of supporting the LGBT community, as she has made a career of doing. For weaving themes of advocacy into the concert, LOGO and MTV are also continuing their favorable attention that resulted from campaigns such as “Fight For Your Rights: Take a Stand Against Discrimination.”

| March 26th, 2007 No Comments »
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