Pride Month brings with it a renewed or heightened fascination with the LGBT consumer for marketers and communicators. To start off your week right, here's the thoughts from one of the newest, provocative businesses leveraging social media and a unique business model to reach and engage LGBT consumers.
Nick Vivion and Kevin Farrell recently founded Unicorn Booty, a social media marketing platform that connects consumers with gay-friendly businesses. Nick spoke at the Community Marketing Inc. LGBT Marketing and Advertising conference in New York back in April. I personally remember being intrigued simply by the name at first, but quickly became impressed with Nick and Kevin's business model and thoughts on LGBT consumers and communications. Read on for the first portion of our Q&A with Unicorn Booty's Nick.
1. So just what is Unicorn Booty? How did you develop the concept and the name?
It's simple: Meet gay-friendly businesses every day. Unicorn Booty is an interactive marketing platform that connects the community with gay-friendly companies, so that we can support those companies that support us. Every day we feature a different business, and we give away a product or service from that business in our Daily Gay Giveaway. We then promote them through a custom video, photos, social media mentions and a complete takeover of our homepage. Each business gets an integrated social media campaign which is shared with an engaged, active and loyal audience. And our community gets a chance to win free stuff while learning cool products from gay-friendly businesses. It's a really cool symbiotic system!
After volunteering at the No on 8 campaign in California, and seeing how well-funded and organized anti-gay groups are, I realized that aggregating the LGBT buying power is more important than ever. After looking around, I couldn't find a solid resource to learn about gay-friendly businesses. Sure there was the HRC Buying Guide, but what about the small-to-midsize businesses that many of us frequent everyday?
Unicorn Booty was born out of the desire to encourage equality by allowing all businesses to be gay-friendly.
Since we believe that supporting businesses that support the LGBT community is the surest way to real and lasting change, we had to come up with a concept that would facilitate that. We had seen a couple of interactive marketing websites that used social media and giveaways to promote a different company every day, and we thought that was the perfect model for what we wanted to accomplish. So Kevin and I put our heads together and we came up with Unicorn Booty. As we were brainstorming the name, we wanted something that was appropriately gay, had some magic in it and suggested bounty or prizes. Everyone loves unicorns and booty has the delicious double-entendre.
2. What’s your definition of the LGBT consumer/market today? What defines them, their purchasing decisions, and their communications?
The LGBT market is in many ways like any other market: It is fractured and affected by the current state of the economy. There is no longer one LGBT marketplace. They are segmented into groups along various lines: racial, sex, age, income, preferences. "Marketing to the gays" is pretty much meaningless, because it is a nearly impossible to create meaning for such a diverse group. For example, we have a different product every day. Not every product appeals to every one of our fans. But we are doing our best to diversify and reflect the varied interests of our community.
From our experience at Unicorn Booty, the most unique characteristics of the LGBT consumer community is that they are fiercely loyal. Once you have them on your side, they become instant evangelists. Brands are pieces of their identity, and so it's increasingly important to create an emotional connection with your customer. We knew that we had a powerful brand with Unicorn Booty, and know that a strong part of our success has been our brand. We wouldn't have been able to reach 8,000 fans on Facebook in 8 weeks with a different name!
3. What response have you seen to Unicorn Booty – both from consumers and businesses? What role do you play in the communications between the two?
The LGBT community is more well-connected than their straight counterparts. We know the Web, and we use it to our advantage daily. Whether for dating or shopping, for staying in touch or finding what to do this weekend, we are using the Web to discover and connect with the world around us. I think it's the nature of being a minority: You use all the tools at your disposal to connect with like-minded folk. We are working hard to leverage this affinity with the Web, so that people can really start seeing Unicorn Booty as a place to discover cool products from gay-friendly businesses.
As such, both businesses and consumers are responding. Businesses look to the LGBT market for their engagement, loyalty and brand-consciousness. The LGBT market is looking for businesses that reflect their community. They don't want to be marketed to, they want to feel like the business is a permanent part of their community. We are helping facilitate that connection for businesses, acting as another conduit to the gay community. By being featured on Unicorn Booty, businesses are announcing to the world that they support the gay community.
We also see ourselves as a bit like a translation service: We take the business, synthesize its' core attributes through our filter and then present them as they appeal to us as gay consumers. We are a mix between a CoolHunting-style blog and a marketing firm. Interactive marketing is all about presenting information in unexpected ways, and we are working to position ourselves as a resource to any company that wants to engage with the gay market.
4. Is this business model sustainable for other target audiences? What plans can you share on Unicorn Booty’s growth and future?
There are most definitely opportunities within other niche markets for similar services. We are always looking towards the future and how we can grow this beyond the Daily Gay Giveaway. The gay market is incredibly underserved, and as it's estimated to be a $825 billion market by 2011, we are eager to serve. There really are no good resources for consumers trying to learn about, and spend money with, gay-friendly businesses. We want to develop into a localized resource that empowers and enables the gay community to aggregate their buying power in a fun and unique way. This isn't a chamber of commerce, but a way of life.
Definitely be sure to check back tomorrow for the rest of our interview with Nick and more on their new ways of engaging the LGBT community.
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