It’s auto show season again and media coverage of the North American International Auto Show and Washington Auto Show (among others) has focused on the “green” autos being introduced by the automotive industry around the world. That’s good news to be sure, and signals a real interest by the automakers in providing solutions that meet consumer needs.
But that raises a question for me: green is great, but where’s the pink? As I have pointed out in the past, auto manufacturers should focus on all of their consumer audiences in looking for ways to remain relevant and interesting to the auto buying public. And that means they ought to fully focus on the powerful, loyal and yes, still largely untapped, gay and lesbian consumer too.
Our community’s buying power and our loyal purchasing behavior make us a prime target for all kinds of consumer goods, including cars. But even with the stylish Cadillac ads in Out and the fun, open Volvo ads in the Advocate, our community has been largely overlooked in public relations and marketing campaigns by automakers. Advertising is great, but it’s not enough to reach often skeptical gay and lesbian consumers. Increasingly, the price of entry for our community is engagement. And that means active, public efforts to reach us and support our communities beyond just advertising in print publications or online.
So what does that mean automakers should be doing? It means engaging with us in an open, honest, consistent manner: partnering with community groups to sponsor an event, hosting a photo shoot with an LGBT family group and then using the photos in your outreach, or working with your dealer network to identify local events you can support. And then it means talking about these efforts publicly so that our community sees your willingness to be open and out front about what you’re doing and how that work is part of your other outreach. If you’re proud of us, we’ll be proud of you and that means we’ll be much more likely to buy your products.
Surprisingly, many automakers don’t have far to go. Chrysler, Ford and General Motors can all boast of 100 percent ratings on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. Many others have gay-friendly policies in place and are listed as “gay-friendly” on auto-buying resources such as gaywheels.com. In fact, our friends at gaywheels.com earlier this month announced that German automaker BMW is being added to their list of “gay-friendly automakers because of BMW’s decision to begin offering domestic partner benefits to its U.S. manufacturing employees this year (other U.S. employees were added last year).
Detroit’s “big three” have actually led the way on many of these issues with their gay-friendly policies and support for advertising and outreach aimed at our community. But, as I have pointed out in the past, that support often fades in the bright lights of auto show season making many of us wonder if we’re an audience of convenience instead of an audience of importance. It’s not that openly engaging gay and lesbian people in auto show outreach is so important, it’s that engagement of that kind demonstrates that the auto companies are more than fair-weather friends of our community.
As many of the domestic automakers struggle with declining market share and lack of interest in their new car offerings (even as they launch compelling new models that are capturing the attention of many auto enthusiasts), they would be well-served to think about our community as a part of their ongoing outreach efforts this year. In tough times, you need all the friends you can get and we’ve demonstrated that we’re great friends – in good times and bad – to the companies that are true friends to us.
P.S. The photo above is from a trip to New Mexico that Mark and I took last year.
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