Guido: It’s amazing to see how the globalized social media impact the decisions of companies and their reputation. When the news hit Germany first most of the headlines...
Hlengiwe Buthelezi: We would like to create a relationship with other LGBT organisation as much as possible in order to learn more things. KZN LGBT Recreation is still a rawling...
Erin Grohs: Thanks, Michael – much appreciated. Happy Pride!
Let’s see. On paper, I’m a 30 year-old, white, American female. I’m a lesbian. I’m an ex-pat living in London. I’m also a blogger, pet-lover, fan of the National Trust, twin, tweeter, university graduate, etc…
We define ourselves in infinite ways. Our online personas are just as amorphous. So If we’re nearly impossible to categorise, what chance is there for an organisation to successfully engage the LGBT community? For many organisations, committing to work with the LGBT is a brave first step if you consider existing hierarchies or internal politics. Then, there are the challenges such as demonstrating ROI of a first-year programme to that same group of stakeholders.
We can also be a vocal bunch, guarded and even cynical as a result of poorly executed marketing campaigns from the past. So why even bother?
First and foremost, consumers want to engage with brands. LGBT are no different. Chances are, we’ll welcome most brands with open arms. We’ll remember your sponsorships, donations and guest speakers if done right. And we’ll be thankful for it.
Here are a few factors organisations should look at when considering engaging the LGBT community:
We are powerful.
Here in the UK, the “Pink Pound” is estimated at approximately £6billion a year. According to the BBC, “the gay travel market could be worth $142bn (£90bn) next year.” This year’s incoming census data will give visibility to hundreds of thousands of Britons – some for the first time ever. Once published, virtually every sector will pour over the census data and leverage it for new business, votes and what have you. Will the LGBT community become a priority for fundraisers?
We are loyal.
The LoveBox music festival in London re-branded it’s third day this year as Out & Fierce. However, nearly all online chatter, including every single one of my gay friends’ Facebook status updates, referred to it as Gay Day. Each year hundreds gather for Gay Days Anaheim, the unofficial LGBT day at Disneyland USA. Organised mostly by the community, those who attend are encouraged to wear red shirts to be recognised by their peers around “The Happiest Place on Earth.” There’s a reason the LGBT community loves certain brands. We remember your support whether formal or informal.
We are untapped.
There are the parade-goers, social singles and high-income bracket who are usually targeted by organisations. But there are emerging niche groups within the LGBT community that remain untouched. Legalised marriage in the US and rising adoption and surrogacy in the UK have caused LGBT couples to emerge as a hugely desirable market. Here is an entirely new growing segment of families looking to engage with family-friendly (and gay-friendly) brands. Successful engagement in this space by a major brand could lay the foundation for the rest of their industry, potentially others.
There are risks for organisations when reaching out to any new community, despite even the best intentions. However, if the emphasis is put into understanding what matters most to your target, how and where they identify, you stand a better chance at forging meaningful relationships — relationships that may lead to brand ambassadorships, votes or sales.
Sound familiar? Consider this a new take on the ageless PR motto: know your audience.
Yesterday, Google joined Cisco, Kimpton Hotels and the Gates Foundation in increasing pay to gays and lesbians to make up for the approximately $1,000 difference gay couples pay in domestic partnership taxes in comparison to their heterosexual counterparts.
So… what does this mean? Is this the case study we share with our employers to do the same or to our oppressors to validate our “marriages?” Do we just hang this up on our wall of accomplishments and hope that others follow suit? Just what does it mean that Google has returned one of the best results to its employees?
It means that talented gay and lesbian individuals power one of the most common household names, that the keywords you typed into the Google search bar has been routed to find your #1 response by someone who could be queer. Google is outing itself as a company with approximately 700 gay and lesbian employees and validating their equal rights as citizens of this country. It raises the profile of gays and lesbian in the workforce.
What can these companies do to keep the momentum?
They should continue to promote their policy by seeking opportunities so speak with gay and lesbian media (and general media as well) on the important decision to vouch for progress for the gay and lesbian community. This will create additional loyalty and showcase them as thought-leaders in diversity issues.
They can keep the momentum by encouraging partners and vendors to do the same. Yes, this sounds a bit like advocacy work – which is far off each company’s agenda in terms of gay and lesbian issues – but I am willing to bet each of these company’s LGBT employee groups would be willing to start this conversation.
What would you advise? What would you like to see? All comments are welcome!
German TV can be quite frustrating for an LGBT audience. More or less all you get to see are straight characters with very few exceptions once in a while. Sure, there are the dailies with the LGBT characters but for reasons of quality I would rather neglect them at this point.
So it was quite a step forward when in November 2008 the first German dedicated LGBT TV station started airing its program. The station, called TIMM – Television, Internet, Media for Men –claimed “We love Men.” Too bad that, apparently, German men didn’t like TIMM as much as the TV station liked us. In April, the station entered bankruptcy and ever since stopped airing its program over satellite and cable.
So how could this happen after decades of gay German men complaining that mainstream TV did not, or at least not on a regular basis, dedicate to their interests? The station was run as non-pay TV depending more or less solely on commercials. The managers of TIMM did not really have a choice because pay TV is a miserable business in Germany where several investors have gone bankrupt over it. That is quite a difference to the situation of the U.S. TV station here! or Logo. In Germany, a niche audience is not willing to pay for a program which is aimed at their specific needs. But why is that the case?
The debate after the announced bankruptcy offers two views: a gay and a straight one. The gay perception is that the TV station itself is a good idea yet the way it was run was not appealing enough. Hardly any of the shows were actually produced for a German audience. The vast majority of the program was bought from abroad. You may want to argue that LGBT-related issues are somewhat universal. And yes, I totally agree that LGBT stories are universal but as I previously wrote in another post, it is about how you tell the story, about how you reach your audience and respect regional differences. For example, Noah’s Arc surely was an entertaining show, but the plot was simply not close enough to the German audience for anybody to identify with the show and actually keep watching it. I guess Frankfurt and L.A. are separated by more than just 6,000 miles. In contrast, the few shows that were actually produced in and for Germany enjoyed quite positive reception both by critics and the audience.
The straight argument is that the LGBT community does indeed feel comfortable with the program they are offered by the general TV stations. It was written that “we” had finally arrived in the mainstream media with LGBT characters addressing us as an audience. A special niche has become obsolete, and so on. The whole discussion culminated in the finding that LGBT emancipation had come to an end altogether.
In my view, the discussion about the bankruptcy of TIMM shows one point very clearly. While the LGBT community still sees a need for specialized media offerings due to the fact that the mainstream does not offer certain content, the general public considers our struggle of acceptance as over. This is similar to the annual return of the Pride discussion. Do we still really need Pride? While you will find very few members of our community say that Pride has become an anachronism, a large proportion of the general population will tell you that LGBT has made it in the middle of our society and we don’t need to raise awareness for us anymore.
This is a bit of a worrying development to me because it nicely demonstrates that according to the wider public opinion the LGBT community has enough rights already. The general tenor seems to be: “We gave you enough already, so shut up and welcome to the mainstream.” Quite displaced is this point of view, since hate crimes still happen on a weekly basis. Last week, in Berlin a gay man was stabbed in the back for holding hands with his boyfriend. This incident has only been reported by LGBT media. The mainstream media remained silent. Once again: Welcome.
What do you think about specialized media? Do we still need them or are you satisfied with the attention mainstream media pay to our interests?
Happy Monday, all! Apologies for being MIA on the blog of late– it's been one of those months where vacation took me away from my responsibilities on here. Rest assured, I am back!
The Tony Awards were last night. You know the Tony Awards– the annual theater award show where random presenters with no connection to Broadway (read: this year, some New York Jets player and Raquel Welch) give "Best of" awards to high-profile shows and actors and often overlook some lesser-known, but well-deserving productions. This year's festivities were hosted by Sean Hayes. You know Sean Hayes, of "Will & Grace" and Newsweek fame. He and "Promises, Promises" co-star Kristin Chenoweth had some fun at Newsweek's expense at the beginning of the show– as the photo shows here.
What I love about the Tony Awards is that for three hours, television audiences are exposed to different works of art. While this year spent too much time on Green Day and the cast of "Glee," there was still ample opportunity to soak in some fantastic performances and more importantly, truly heartfelt acceptance speeches by winners. And from what I can observe, the Broadway community is all about acceptance. Several of the winners last night acknowledged their partner, and many of the performers participate each year in the "Broadway Cares" project to help fund HIV research and education. It's certainly the gayest of our award shows, but I love that CBS commits each year to bringing the Tonys to the rest of the world, regardless of ratings. Not everyone can afford a pilgrimage to the Great White Way, but sitting down with your family and watching a performance of "La Cage aux Folles" is the next best thing.
From a marketing perspective, I would have loved to see more of corporate America recognize the majority demographic viewing the show last night and tweak the advertisements to appeal to this specific community. Think about the Super Bowl. Many companies create ad campaigns that incorporate both the game and the viewing audience (remember how Betty White reclaimed her fame this Super Bowl?). How great would it have been last night for advertisers to incorporate the show and the LGBT community in the spots that aired. Granted, there may have been some as I forwarded the first half on DVR, but I hope that we see more LGBT campaigns during the Tony broadcasts in the future.
Speaking of marketing, we're taking our "ButtOut Ohio" project to Columbus Pride this weekend to share the campaign with the LGBT community. I plan on taking some photos at the event and will share my thoughts next week about how companies are using Pride as an opportunity to engage with us.
Have a great week.
(Photo courtesy of Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
And we're back today with the second half of our conversation with Unicorn Booty's Nick Vivion about his business, the LGBT consumer and social media. And speaking of leveraging digital and social media for the gays, take a look at the video at the end of this post and a recent write-up on how Nick and his partner Kevin are using social media to help uncover the reason behind YouTube's selective removal of their video today.
5. Besides Unicorn Booty, what are your thoughts on how businesses should communicate with and engage with LGBT consumers? Is digital and social media the best channel?
Unicorn Booty is of course the only way to reach LGBT consumers.
Of course that's not true! I am platform agnostic – just use what works. What works for us is all digital and social media. Why pay $50,000 for a full-page ad in the Advocate when you can create an interactive experience that really engages your target audience for a fraction of the price? The majority of other media – print and television – are over-priced and not as effective. People keep doing them because that's the status quo, but you really can't measure the impact of a print ad beyond circulation. The exciting (and very scary!) thing about digital/social media is that you can measure everything! You know how long someone spent on the site, where they want, if they bought anything. You know what they think of your brand. It's all right there, and you can't hide from it. That makes advertising much harder, because rather than just doing a "media buy" and crossing your fingers, you actually have to deliver results.
The funny thing about this tension between traditional and new media is that many businesses are still stuck in a sales mentality. Will it drive sales? Will it boost my revenue? This is a dangerous mentality to have, because social media is about less tangible relationship marketing. There are 1.37 billion influence impressions online every day (Forrester). It's not just about sales, it's being a part of a whole new world where priorities have shifted from your desire to sell to your customer's desire to be engaged. You are not always going to be able to measure the sales impact of your social media efforts, but you CAN measure engagement, which lays out the path to increased brand awareness, affinity and authenticity as you meet consumers on their terms.
6. What challenges have you experienced or seen other businesses face when communicating with the LGBT market?
As I mentioned earlier, the LGBT market is diverse. You cannot create one campaign "for the gays" and expect it to resonate community-wide. That's dangerous territory, and if you haven't ever marketed to the LGBT community before get some help! If you offend the community, it has a very long-term memory. So go slow, think twice and ask someone who knows what their doing!
For us, our biggest challenge is distilling our message down to its core so that it resonates with the widest swath of the LGBT community as possible. We really do want to appeal to the community as a whole. For us to succeed in our mission to strengthen our community through supporting gay-friendly businesses, we need to have as many people as possible on-board. Once we reach the tipping point, it becomes increasingly impossible for businesses to have an anti-gay agenda. $825 billion is a lot of money: A bailout-sized chunk of cash ready to be put behind equality-minded businesses. Communicating this vision is the most challenging thing facing us right now, because it applies to both our interactions with consumers and the companies that we are contacting about being featured on our site. We need the consumers to come back every day to check out the day's partner, and we need the companies to see the value in the market. Both sides have an interest in seeing those gay dollars at work: Consumers want to see them being used positively in the community, and businesses want to see them being spent on their products. UB is in charge of bringing this vision to both stakeholders.
7. Tell us more about your social responsibility component. Is this a crucial element for businesses engaging with LGBT consumers? How should a business communicate that or its advocacy efforts?
We give 10% of our net proceeds to a different community-chosen non-profit every quarter. This quarter it's Seattle's Lifelong AIDS Alliance. My experience with the Mormons during No on 8 drove this decision, because I saw first-hand what can be accomplished when an entire community gives 10% of their income. People with anti-gay agendas are already giving 10% to organizations that exist to reduce our status in the world, so if we don't also give 10% then they will win, every time. So we call our 10% commitment our "gay tithe," and are hoping to popularize the concept as we lead by example. 10% of $825 billion is $8.25 billion. To put that into perspective, that is enough money to put every single LGBT person in the USA through private college. If you consider what could be done with a simple 10% commitment, it's astounding.
With a community that has experienced long-term discrimination, and who is still not enjoying full equality, a socially responsible component can be a vital component to engaging LGBT consumers. It gives you another marketing tool, but it also demonstrates that you understand the challenges still facing the community. It sends a clear message that you empathize and are committed to doing something about it. It also differentiates you from any competition and places you more firmly in the community. Communicating your commitment to advocacy or a particular non-profit should be secondary to your main value proposition. You do not want to be seen as giving to a non-profit only for the good-will and self-interest of your company. You must come at it from the heart, and mention it in a tasteful but obvious way. You don't want to hide it, but you don't want it to be your primary selling point either. It should be an added benefit, something that makes the consumer choose you over your competition when faced with a decision. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't leverage the hell out of it on the back-end: Contact stakeholders, befriend members of the organization you have partnered with, use your commitment to the organization to recruit evangelists, ask the organization if you can participate in any events they have going on. For example, we will be MCing at a Lifelong AIDS Alliance rooftop benefit next week – a great opportunity for visibility that works even better due to our 10% commitment to that organization. We want to demonstrate that new entrepreneurs can build a successful and sustainable business while still giving 10%. It's not necessarily a gay thing, but a human being thing. We all have to be part of the solution, regardless of what we do for a living.
The Out Front blog aims to stimulate thoughtful discussion about the communications issues that affect the LGBT community. Authored by members of Fleishman-Hillard’s Out Front team, the blog addresses the challenges and vast opportunities associated with marketing to and communicating with this growing audience. Areas of discussion include media coverage, advertising, entertainment and multicultural communications.
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Out Front was launched in 2006, continuing the agency’s tradition as a communications pioneer within the gay and lesbian community. Over the years, the blog has been home to some of the industry’s most respected bloggers, all of whom have covered “the full spectrum of LGBT communications” with unparalleled insight.
The views expressed here represent the individual opinions of the bloggers and do not necessarily represent the views of Fleishman-Hillard or its clients.
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