Dream ticket

Big name companies are increasingly targeting the gay market, one of the most technologically savvy and internet-aware groups, writes Karlin Lillington

Thursday October 16, 2003
The Guardian

They're an advertiser's dream - the perfect online consumer group. They spend up to 10 times longer online than the average internet user, and are far more likely to buy the latest gadgets. Their incomes are higher and they're better educated. And they show strong loyalty to organisations that target them. Gays and lesbians online, take a bow.
"Gay men and women have the technology attitudes and demographics that marketers dream about. Gays are among the first to adopt new devices and online tools, making them prime targets for digital marketing as well as emerging technologies," says a recent Forrester Research study.

The market might seem negligible - an estimated 17m Americans and 3-6m Britons are homosexual. "But two things mitigate against this market being 'small'," says analyst Jed Kolko, author of the Forrester study. "The first is buying power, and the second is that this is a fairly identifiable audience. There are clear websites that people go to, and events like Gay Pride that make it easy to target them."

The power of the pink pound is significant: £6bn in the UK and $464bn in the US, where gays and lesbians outstrip Asians and Hispanics in collective buying power and, in per capita terms, are well ahead of all US minority groups. How easy is it for advertisers to find this potential market online? The number one American website to reach single men with household incomes over $75,000 is not CNN sports, but Gay.com (which has a UK satellite site, uk.gay.com), according to research by @plan.

Kolko says gays and lesbians in the US are more likely to be university graduates, be online, to have broadband, and to shop, bank and book travel online. They are more likely than heterosexuals to own almost every type of electronic device, excluding camcorders and video game consoles. And, they are more likely to join in every variety of online activity from dating to downloading music, using instant messaging and sending e-greeting cards. The only things they don't do in greater numbers are visit sports sites (except lesbians, compared to women in general) and play games online by themselves.

UK figures have turned up similar results. A survey in 2001 found that 52% of gays and lesbians were online, compared to 32% of the general public, 27% bank online, and the average monthly online spend of those using the net was £160.

Those kinds of demographics have made gays and lesbians the target of campaigns by big name companies, not just those that offer gay-specific services. Gay.com pulls in big name advertisers such as American Airlines, Viacom, Procter & Gamble, General Motors and IBM. Gay.co.uk has snapped up Debenhams, Visa and Sainsbury's, to name a few.

Research shows that gays and lesbians are among the most brand-loyal of consumers, says Kolko. A gay-specific approach has made American Express and Absolut leading brands with gays and lesbians.

Overall, they are 87% more likely to give their custom to companies that target them specifically.

Based on such figures, PlanetOut Partners, the media parent company of Gay.com, has adopted an aggressive marketing approach towards advertisers. "The average middle-class family spends over $1m to raise a child through age 22. Some gay people have kids. Most don't. Where are they spending that money? On your products," says one pitch on its website.

Advertisers are biting - in some cases. While Queercompany.com and Gay365.com have folded, PlanetOut startled many in the struggling online publication world this summer when it announced it had gone into the black, based on the revenue its cluster of online sites pulls in. These include Out & About Travel, PlanetOut.com, eight international sites for Gay.com, and a shopping site targeting gays and lesbians. This is called Kleptomaniac.com after the comment by former US senator Trent Lott that homosexuals were sick and should receive treatment, like alcoholics or kleptomaniacs.

But it isn't all about shopping. Kolko believes the web has been transformative for gays and lesbians: "The fact that the virtual [gay] community is so strong suggests it has changed the experience of being gay."

But whatever the reasons, advertisers are increasingly hearing one message: viewing the web through rose-tinted glasses might not be a bad idea.

http://www.guardian.co.uk...72,00.html

HELLO NICK!!

most gay people don't have kids (or am i wrong)?