Guy Padgett, is the new (and probably first) gay mayor in Wyoming. Don’t know about America UK’s news.telegraph reports 6% of population are gay or lesbian (Whitehall figures)…that’s 3.6 M I L L I O N people. Ford cant afford to miss the market.
Ford is back with advertising in Gay magazines. Land Rover, Jaguar, Mazda, Lincoln, Volvo all will again be seen in the gay oriented magazines like Out and Advocate. On my last post I doubted Ford’s anti-Gay move. Ford has a policy which believes in branding in minority groups. It has been doing it for years. A single anti move can destroy all the hard work.
Joe Laymon, group vice president in a letter to gay, lesbian and human rights addressed them as ‘important audience’ and desired to continue advertise all eight brands as usually.
Go back to history and representation of gay and lesbian in mainstream media, Time magazine in 1997 ran a cover story on lesbian comedian, Roll over and a year later carried a story on Gay people. For Better or Worse 1998.
Though not-very-professional gay advertising dated back to 1960s big players took a serious note once Advocate came out in 1990. United Airlines, IBM, Absolut Vodka Reynolds became regular advertisers. Not sure about Ford though when it started advertising for Gays and Lesbians.
Ford’s possible motive behind minority brand building
1. The cost of creating and sustaining advertising or other promotional campaigns are much cheaper than say pre testing, creating, implementing and sustaining campaigns in broader and general demographic media which is in any way choc a bloc with thousands of players.
2. A greater endorsement of support. Advertisers stand to gain goodwill of gay and lesbian consumers. They perceive it as an acceptance of their community, recognition of their movement which they may not satisfactorily find in the mainstream media.
