Many countries in Latin America are proudly enjoying bicentennial independence anniversary celebrations and others are additionally celebrating worthy signs of significant developments favoring their LGBT communities. Argentina is a clear example of this.
Argentina is the backdrop of important mass events for the community, including their Gay Pride March and the Gay Tango Buenos Aires event – where couples participate in a marathon by dancing for 40 hours straight to their very traditional dance. Additionally, and for the third consecutive year, Argentina is hosting the International Forum of Businesspeople and Entrepreneurs in the LGBT Segment, an event gathering 250 leaders in companies who currently dedicate part of their business strategy to targeting our segment. The event is actually considered the most important Gay Marketing event in the region and is very well attended by large companies in the tourism sector, including Delta Airlines, NH Hotels, Modigliani Suites and the Ramada hotel chain, among several others.

Gay tourism is one of the projects the Argentine government is taking into account quite seriously, given that tourists in the gay community spend nearly 400 million dollars a year in the country. The great majority of travelers to Argentina for LGBT tourism come from Brazil and the U.S.
And, Argentina is not the only market hosting these kinds of events, in fact, similar editions of the gay marketing encounters are also being held in Montevideo, Uruguay and in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
It is a real pleasure to know that similarities among Latin American countries go beyond a common language, a history of conquest and independence or just similar cultural traits. It is good to know that other issues bring us together as an LGBT community in the region to generate new ways of promoting businesses devoted to our market niche.

Hey Out Front readers – what can you tell me about your LGBT community center? If it takes you longer than a few moments to tell me where it’s located, the last time you visited or the last Facebook message it sent you, then there’s a good chance that your local center could use some help in communicating its mission to its various audiences. Our LGBT centers empower the entire LGBT community, helping us to create a healthier, safer and more unified community.

Fortunately, today happens to be LGBT Center Awareness Day! Founded by CenterLink: The Community of LGBT Centers, it is an annual day of awareness promoting the critical role that community centers play in local communities and in the overall LGBT movement. Not only are LGBT community centers the front door to the LGBT community, but in the U.S they serve more than 40,000 people each week. Located in small towns and huge metro areas, these centers provide counseling services, cultural programming and advocacy work (among a host of other things!) in addition to serving as the backbone for the LGBT community.  For communications professionals and marketers, as well as companies targeting the LGBT community, these community centers are a central place to interact with LGBT influencers (hello, brand power!). We know that many companies continue to target this increasingly powerful community; as they do so, community centers can provide valuable insight into this market.

So, what are some centers doing this year? Well, the Utah Pride Center has organized a number of events to mark the day, including a community service project, an open house and a cook-off. Even cooler? Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker plans to declare September 15th as National Community Center Awareness Day and his proclamation will be read by a member of the Human Rights Commission that evening.  Resource Center Dallas is displaying a special group of items from the Phil Johnson Historic Archives and Research Library, including a sign from the 1993 March on Washington signed by Dallas participants and a yard sign from the Proposition 2 election in 2005.

And, in case you forgot that today was a day of awareness, the smart folks over at CenterLink have put together an incredible toolkit that includes a template welcome letter, event ideas, as well as talking points for advocates.
Marking a particular day is a great way to increase recognition, particularly by hosting events within the community but how can centers stay Out Front all year long?

• Involve the entire community, not just LGBT citizens. The LGBT Center of Raleigh participates in the city’s First Friday events every month; opening its doors to the entire community with art shows and cocktail parties.

• Get the message out! Use social media, email, good old fashioned signs and letters, etc., to make sure the community knows about your center. CenterLink’s toolkit includes great information that can be used all year long.

• Take a look at other community centers for inspiration.

• Play to your community’s strengths and interests. Live in an area that loves BBQ? Include that in your event plans.

Photo courtesy of http://www.mycenterlink.com/resources.html.

In striving to offer you, dear reader, something of real value, I took the question of “how do you reach U.S. Hispanic gays and lesbians?” and have crafted an answer that should provide some sort of initial guidance. I don’t pretend, and neither should you, that this is the end-all, be-all  as there is much, much more to this vibrant community and highly untapped opportunity for your brand. However, below are three ways to get you going:

1. Identify your target audience. Hispanics (including the gay and lesbian ones) have many different backgrounds. Seriously, maybe more than 20. Background differentiators include countries of origin, food, music, what part of the U.S. they live in and level of acculturation among others. It is important that you know which ones make the most sense for your brand. Is your brand global? Would they already be familiar with it from their native country, or are you making an introduction? Are you looking for English speaking Hispanics who have higher levels of assimilation or the Spanish speaking, newly arrived Latino? Do you need to focus more in a geographic area, say Miami or Los Angeles? Both of those areas have high Hispanic populations which are completely different from one another.
2. Set your platform.  Speak with them, not at them when establishing a relationship. Become part of the conversation. Gay Latinos have a heavy plate on things that are of interest to them which, if you think about it, increases your brand’s chances of establishing a connection. They want to hear that you know they are Hispanic AND gay or lesbian. They want to be valued, accepted and for you to know and respect that Hispanics may become the largest minority (if they are not already where they reside). The political agenda doubles with topics such as gay marriage and adoption rights, immigration, language in schools, healthcare (obesity and HIV among others), higher education and small business agendas to name a few. Where does your product/brand fit in the most?
3. Activate. Find gay Hispanic characters and find a way to connect on the screen. Think of shows such as “Ugly Betty,” “Modern Family,” or shows with large gay and lesbian followings such as “Glee” or “True Blood.” Keep in mind there are Spanish language shows  with gay characters as well.  Art (writing, theatre, music) plays a significant role in the Hispanic gay community as well, it is sometimes the anchor which unites several cultures. Just ask yourself “Where do I want to reach them?” or “What is my target audience into?”

As I mentioned before, there is much more to the art of reaching such a complex community which is ripe with opportunity, but this is a good place to start.

When I started to make up my mind what to write for my first post after the summer my brain felt completely drained. So I asked myself what the one single big LGBT thing this summer in Germany or Europe was.  It took quite a while and the support of my boyfriend until the Gay Games came to my mind.

I have to admit that I was a little ashamed about myself that it took so long for me to actually come up with this event. Wasn’t this event to be the LGBT landmark event for Germany, Europe, and the world this year? To be honest, it certainly wasn’t for me personally. Actually I almost forgot that the Games until I was surprised to see all these unfamiliar “faces” on the infamous gay social community Grindr. Only then it came to me that these people must be participants and visitors of the Gay Games.

Weeks before I was asking friends if they would want to come with me to the Games. Most of them were not even aware that the Games would take place in Cologne this year. We all decided that it would be worth going but nobody committed himself to it on a long-term. So week by week passed by and we all forgot and in the end nobody went.

So when Grindr reminded me about it, I started looking for ways to participate from a distance. In other words I was looking for media outlets which reported about the event. It turned out that they weren’t that easy to find. There was no real broadcast coverage of the event, neither on TV or radio, nor on the internet. Media attention had only a limited regional scope focused on Cologne and the immediate vicinity. Here in Frankfurt there were almost no media outlets that reported about the event. Some national media, including leading quality newspapers did write about the Gay Games. But most reports in national media focused on the Games as such but did not mention the performance of the participants.

But if the media are not interested in the actual achievements of the participants and their interest is entirely bound to the event as such then after writing one article or taking shots for a TV feature the interest of both, the media and the public, subsides. This kind of coverage is clearly not enough to confront people outside the LGBT community with our message. At the end of the Gay Games people in Cologne and the region were certainly involved. But given the fact the Cologne is the German LGBT epicenter not a lot in terms of creating awareness was won. Outside the region only the interested LGBT community got involved because they pulled the information they wanted. Unfortunately, almost everybody else wasn’t participating.

For the next Gay Games, I consider this to be a big challenge and a great opportunity at the same time. For me there are three lessons to be learned from the Games in Cologne:

1. Push your message to the general audience and don’t just rely on the LGBT community to pull the content they want. Only then you are able to reach a nation and not just a region.
2. It can be an advantage that the host city is not a LGBT hotspot. One of the original ideas, the promotion of acceptance for the LGBT community, is much more in the foreground then.
3. Focus on the individual when promoting the Games. The Games as such will produce coverage dedicated to the idea and the history. But all of this is abstract and people will forget. But if you manage to put faces to the Games then these will stick in people’s minds and will make them be interested during and after the Games.

What do you think, what is the key to reach a broader non-LGBT audience when it comes to the Gay Games?