Straight Eye for the Gay Buyer
Christie Schweinsberg Ward's AutoWorld, Apr 23, 2004 12:00 PM

As the sun rises on a Manhattan morning, it’s just another day for the Fab Five of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, the hit TV show screened on both NBC and the Bravo cable network.

The Five: Carson Kressley, Thom Filicia, Jai Rodriguez, Kyan Douglas and Ted Allen, are rushing to the aid of some helpless hetero shlub in flannel plaid who has no idea what the difference is between zhushing and schussing – but is about to find out. (For the uninitiated, it’s messily styling your hair vs. a skiing term).

And their mode of transportation for attending to this fashion SOS: A GMC Yukon XL Denali. That’s right, GMC, as in General Motors Corp., maker of the “Like a Rock” Chevy trucks Bob Seger sings about and vehicles most Americans think are as straight as Bob Lutz’s tie.

This is the auto maker associating its large, meat-and-potatoes SUV with five openly gay men who regularly joke about kissing their more attractive straight charges and proposing marriage to them?

Yes, and GM says it’s darn proud.

GM, like the many other companies with gay-marketing initiatives, is eyeing the estimated $485 billion in buying power that some 15 million gay, lesbian and bisexual adult consumers brought to the U.S. market in 2003, according to polling firm Harris Interactive Inc.

Clark Sanford, brand promotional manager-GMC, says the idea to include the XL Denali in Queer Eye was spawned by an executive at a product-placement firm who sent Sanford the pilot for the show.

“He said it may be a little risky by GM standards, but it’s an opportunity, and you really need to think about it,” Sanford says. “We showed the pilot here to a cross-section of the staff – and the staff, broadly and generally, liked the show.”

The rest is history. The show now is a hit and GM is in product-placement heaven.

GM officials say the biggest draw for them to Queer Eye is that it features top-shelf brands, such as Thomasville Furniture and Ralph Lauren, and GMC, with its “professional grade” image, fits nicely into that mold.

“You look at all of the finished products, when they get these guys all dressed up, and they’ve got the finest clothing and the neatest furniture and the artwork and the food and the wine and shoes; it is all definitely top-drawer,” says Tom Beaman, manager-communications, Pontiac-GMC. “And the association the Denali has with all of that top-drawer merchandise is what is significant to me. You can’t help but associate all those products together.”

Today, every major auto maker, including GM’s similarly conservative Japanese competitors Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corp., is pitching to the GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) demographic.

Dedicated creative ad campaigns are being employed by auto makers, such as Subaru of America Inc. and Ford Motor Co. for its Premier Automotive Group (PAG) brands, while others run general mass-market ads in gay publications and on popular websites, such as Gay.com. Many auto makers, such as Chrysler Group’s Dodge brand, even sponsor GLBT events.

Other findings about the market allure of the GLBT segment by Harris Interactive:

• While possessing less consumer clout last year than African Americans ($688 billion, population 36 million) and Hispanic Americans ($653 billion, pop. 41 million), gays, lesbians and bisexuals boast buying power greater than that of Asian Americans ($344 billion, pop. 12 million).
  
  
• While gay affluence may be a myth, Harris Interactive says same-sex couples, as well as single gays and lesbians, do tend to have fewer dependents than their heterosexual peers and are apt to have more discretionary spending power.
  
  
• In 2000 some 40% of gays polled planned to buy or lease a new vehicle in the next 12 months, vs. 18% of non-gays surveyed.

Companies pitching to the GLBT segment are hoping to boost their market share in an increasingly fragmented and crowded marketplace.

Auto makers say the strategy is paying off. Just ask Subaru, which fancies itself the industry pioneer in courting the GLBT market with tailored ads.

“We started marketing about 10 years ago, and it was based upon research we had done,” says Rick Crosson, Subaru vice president-marketing. “The gay and lesbian community had already found us – particularly the lesbian community. They had already selected us as a car that they used, that fit their lifestyle and that they used to be able to fulfill their lifestyle.”

Not so fast, Subaru

However, Cynthia Price, GM’s marketing manager-diversity strategy dept., says Saturn was the first automotive company to market to the gay/lesbian community. “We’re nine years into this commitment to the marketplace,” she says. “What you are seeing now is an acceleration of that support, more marketing, more PR, more communication outreach effort, to the gay/lesbian market.”

Obviously, Subaru isn’t alone in the GLBT market.

Besides the Japanese brand, the only other auto maker with a large-scale tailored advertising effort in America targeting the GLBT segment is Ford with its PAG brands: Jaguar, Volvo and Land Rover, although Volvo ads are the only ones currently running. (Tire maker Bridgestone Corp. had dedicated ads from 2001-2003).

Michael Wilke, executive director-Commercial Closet Assn., a group that monitors and critiques gay marketing efforts, says although Saab and Saturn were the first automotive brands to advertise in national gay and lesbian publications – in 1994 and 1995, respectively – their presence in the market has been “inconsistent.”

Ford hired Witeck-Combs Communications, a Washington-based consulting firm that specializes in GLBT marketing practices, to look at all of its brands and select the ones most liked by the GLBT consumer.

Together with Harris Interactive, Witeck-Combs surveyed 1,000 homosexual and 1,000 heterosexual consumers to gauge their likes and dislikes.

“There was definitely a preference for import brands and a higher consideration for GLBT consumers, than our non-gay counterparts, to consider an import brand, especially a premium import brand. So there was definitely an opportunity there,” says John Butler, project manager for the PAG campaign at Witeck-Combs.

Together with advertising agency Prime Access Inc., Witeck-Combs crafted advertisements with taglines such as: “Life is full of twists and turns. Care for a partner?” (Jaguar); and “Whether you’re starting a family or creating one as you go” (Volvo); that ran in national GLBT publications such as The Advocate and Out.

Butler says gays and lesbians, just as other minorities – African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and women – “are paying attention to how somebody is going to advertise to them, and we paid a lot of attention to how the advertisements were crafted.” Several ads were tested in concept form with GLBT consumers before final approval was given, he says.

However, that doesn’t mean auto makers haven’t stumbled a few times as they gear up to cater to this emerging market. Critics complained that one of the ads, specifically the Jaguar “twists and turns” pitch, was too understated for the GLBT customer.

John Nash, president of Moon City Productions, Subaru’s GLBT ad agency for the past 10 years, tells Ward’s the Jaguar ads were “confusing and missed the mark.”

Because of this, he alleges, they were pulled after only six or seven placements in print. Butler disputes this, saying the Jaguar ads only were intended to run through the first quarter of 2003.

Nash also worries that some companies may be doing GLBT marketing only because it’s trendy.

The Loyalty Factor

Although not new to the GLBT market, auto makers have been viewed as less progressive than other Fortune 500 companies, such as alcohol and travel-oriented firms, that have been aggressively pitching to the market for at least a decade.

Nash considers the top three “golden brands” in GLBT advertising to be Subaru, American Express and Absolut Vodka. He says surveys he sees most often find Subaru to be the No.1 or No.2 brand most respected by gay and lesbian consumers.

But Nash even is beginning to wonder, with so many players in the market, can loyalty really be won anymore?

He says GLBT consumers typically have been loyal to brands that remained loyal to them. “You have to be in the market a long time now,” Nash says, because of the number of “copycats.”

Jeff Garber, president of OpusComm Inc., an advertising and public-relations firm, also is convinced companies showing a long-term, dedicated effort do get more of a payoff than companies that don’t have specific creative ads.

“So many advertisers throw an ad in a magazine and wait by the cash register. Nobody said this market was stupid,” Garber says bluntly.

“Loyalty is never easy and that’s why you have to raise the bar,” he continues, adding companies targeting the GLBT segment, or any segment, need to think long-term, as those that hold the most pull now could be pushed out the door if another brand comes along.

GM’s Miriam Muléy, executive director-diversity strategy, is aware of the dilemma. She says the GLBT segment is no different than any other consumer group: “You’ve always got to prove your value, if you will, to that consumer. So we would not take it for granted that we’ve got this consumer long term. We wouldn’t do that with any of our consumer audiences.”

However, GM is not one of the auto makers with advertising currently tailored to the GLBT segment, something those following advertising trends say is a mistake.

“A general-market ad placed in a gay publication does OK, it doesn’t do great,” says Garber. “If you truly want to knock the ball out of the ballpark, you have to be specific in content.”

Nash agrees. “Name recognition and retention goes off the charts when the creative is specifically directed to the G&L consumer,” he says.

Garber speculates one reason advertisers don’t do more tailored advertising is they fear a backlash from disapproving conservatives.

“How many general ads (does GM) place in Ebony magazine to attract African Americans?” Garber asks.

Backlash: Myth or Reality

Subaru says when it first began targeting GLBT consumers it generated a few complaints from conservative groups not pleased it was advertising specifically to the gay and lesbian consumer.

“I can remember a box of letters that was delivered 10 years ago from a church, for example,” says Crosson. “I think over the years as we have explained to everybody, we’re not saying anything about lifestyle. We’re including them in our marketing efforts.”

Nash contends there really wasn’t much backlash, mentioning the letters from an Alabama church group and a guy in prison who wrote a letter saying he’d never buy a Subaru.

“We never really experienced anything bad. Just some strange, crayon-like, from-prison letters,” Nash says.

GMC’s Sanford says, despite the current furor over gay marriage, he hasn’t “had an executive say we shouldn’t do this. I haven’t had a peer manager say we shouldn’t do this” regarding the Denali appearing on Queer Eye.

However, in 1995, when a Saturn ad appeared in Out magazine, GM executives, who got wind of the placement only after the issue was in print, reportedly pulled the ad from future publications.

“I’m sure on a day-to-day basis, somewhere within the company, we’ve had to deal with (a backlash from conservative-minded customers),” says GM’s Price. “The bottom line comes down to the fact that GM is in the business of selling cars and trucks, and we have cars and trucks to fit everyone’s lifestyle and needs, whether you’re gay or lesbian or you’re Asian or you’re a woman.”

But, the fear of a backlash is not unfounded. Some conservative groups in the U.S. have boycotted non-automotive gay-friendly companies, such as the Walt Disney Co. and American Airlines.

Southern Baptists targeted Disney in the mid-1990s for offering benefits to same-sex couples; various right-wing groups targeted American in the U.S. for its anti-discrimination policies.

Although the airline has dedicated advertising aimed at the GLBT consumer, Disney does not. But it appears, in both situations, the boycotts have not had any lasting effect. Disney continues to offer domestic-partner benefits, as does American, which also has specialized advertising.

“There will always be a backlash on anything,” says Garber. “Those who backlash may be highly vocal. But are they the majority or the minority? Those who complain may not be your customer,” he advises companies.

Garber says the stigma gays have in the U.S. is quickly dissipating, as many people now are related to or know someone who is openly gay.

Says Witeck-Combs’ Butler: “I think a lot of companies fear a backlash, that their general market consumer will turn and walk away as a result of their pursuit of the GLBT market, and what we found with our clients, most times, is that is not true. It’s a myth that people believe in.”

Gay marketing has come such a long way that “there really are few companies that would cause any sort of surprise,” says Commercial Closet’s Wilke.

At the same time those critical of GLBT advertising efforts have boycotted certain companies, gays also have protested or criticized companies that haven’t instituted anti-discrimination policies or use gays as a punch line to sell products.

GM has come under fire on the Commercial Closet’s website (CommercialCloset.org) for its recent Chevrolet Colorado TV commercial, which shows a group of male friends driving along, with one in the back seat singing along to the Shania Twain song, “Man, I Feel Like a Woman.” His friends slowly move away from him and give him strange looks.

GM says it is aware of criticism of the ad and is looking to change it. The company emphasizes it has an internal affinity group of gay and lesbian employees, GM Plus (“people like us”), that advises on efforts to target the GLBT segment. Some of them already have called the commercial into question.

Wilke says using homophobic themes is all too common in advertising today. “And there are other examples like (the Colorado ad), and even for less macho brands,” he says.

Other companies, such as Volkswagen of America Inc., have perfected what Wilke has dubbed “gay vague” ads, in which men who appear in them may or may not be a couple.

“It typically shows two guys together, and it’s never really clear what the nature of their relationship is,” says Wilke of VW’s ads.

VW’s popular “Da Da Da” ad that aired during the 1997 “coming out” episode of Ellen is a prime example, he says.

Best Medium for the Message

However, TV commercials remain a rare means of reaching the GLBT segment. Wilke says buying ad time on TV is expensive, in general, let alone for those companies trying to reach a niche market. But, Garber argues, that compared to print publications such as Out, which has a circulation of 100,000, TV on a bad night can draw a million or so viewers and is a much more beneficial medium.

“If you’re very cost-conscious and want to walk before you run, there are tremendous bargains out there in niche cable,” says Garber.

No matter what medium they may choose, auto makers say it is difficult to track whether advertising efforts are drawing GLBT consumers into their showrooms. After all, no one is asked to identify their sexual orientation when buying a car.

It’s impossible to quantify how much the XL Denali’s appearances on Queer Eye have helped GM sell Yukons, but they haven’t hurt, says GM’s Beaman. He says Yukon sales were up 52% in February over last year, and Yukon XL sales rose 20%. Loyalty rates for GMC have risen, as well.

So how about having Queer Eye’s Fab Five work their makeover magic on the XL Denali?

“We have not had that conversation, but you know, maybe one day we will,” says GMC’s Sanford. “We’re always open for new ideas.”

– with Drew Winter and Katherine Zachary