
I’m pleased to direct you to Live 2.0, the idea-driven website overseen by online ticket seller Goldstar.com. Currently, the site is asking questions about the audience for live events—who are they, where are they, how can they be reached?
As part of the discussion, they asked me to write this essay about the changing nature of gay audiences. I’m really happy with what I wrote, not least because I mention gay NASCAR fans.Â
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the piece!






7 responses so far ↓
1 Sarah Saldana // Jul 29, 2009 at 4:49 am
Hi!
Okay…so I think I read more than I can chew but non-the less I did take my time in reviewing your essay and overall discussion on reaching diversified audiences.
It is my opinion that asking how to reach “Gay/LGBT” audience members is the same as reaching black, asian, mexican, etc. Members.
Our society has put so many labels restrictions and limits on our media output. I mean its the same thing as putting a mexican spanish speaking comedian on stage in Japan. Of course being prepared is one thing knowing your audience is not only beneficial to your business but it also shows how much effort you put into what your delivering.
Weather it be a drag queen show or opera and. Believe me drag queens HAVE MORE FUN at Opera’s than straight people especially if you were to make it a theme night like Amadeus!
I would encourage fun theme’s..now this is just my opinion, but I loved watching queer eye for a straight guy. The show was great and helpful and it made things easier for men to be perceptive to being around Gay men without thinking oh I’m gonna get coodies!
Honesty is a good policy and reaching audiences of all kinds is great. But it’s when movies, storys, and real life situations get out of hand. Like that movie “boys don’t cry” or like years ago when some college guy came out and some Gay bashers killed him.
From personal experience reaching your audience is one thing but being a victim/survivor of an ugly crime is another weather it be Gay bashing or straight out prejudices, racism.
So my overall suggestions know your audience be prepared for anything! It’s not just Gay people that are difficult to reach broaden your thinking! It doesn’t take a genius to realize you can’t take grandma to a drag queen concert with music screaming YMCA.
So that’s my opinion on the subject. Personally its a touchy subject in general not everyone is aware. “Awareness is good!” be accepting and aware of what you don’t know. Most people are just afraid of what they don’t know or understand.
Hope I was helpful! – sarah
2 katy // Jul 29, 2009 at 7:10 am
Mark, I liked this piece very much. That Orbitz/HRC thing is interesting, especially if was in fact a calculated attempt to reach out to gay markets. Has Orbitz commented on it at all?
The sad, bottom-line reason why advertisers don’t more often normalize LGBT folks in their ads … because they don’t want to alienate the parts of their audience who would be offended by normalizing LGBT folks. If Levi and Budweiser run ads in specialty markets, well, nobody knows about that but the specialty markets. I know this isn’t news to you.
In other news, I really agreed with Jim McCarthy’s essay on that same page.
3 Laura Mc. // Jul 29, 2009 at 1:48 pm
I youtubed the commercial, and I think there is more to consider than the human rights emblem. I did not necessarily see how the spot related to gay viewers, unless the human rights campaign itself has made the extension of the laws to gay citizens part of its agenda.. which it probably has. I am not fully aware of what they have been up to of late.
So, in order to see the commercial as a subtle courting of gay consumers, you must first know that Orbitz has a number of more explicitly queer (male) spots. Copy/ Paste this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy9t88LT98o
One could easily interpret the golfers’ sexuality as straight, I think. If Orbitz was going for the symbolic, under the radar thing, they flew right past me.. but then again I am a straight viewer, so I guess I am apt to miss a gesture here and there.
4 Zach // Jul 29, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Nice piece, Mark. I’d seen that Orbitz ad, but for some inexplicable reason, I never noticed the HRC logo on the guy’s shirt. It’s refreshing indeed.
It got me thinking about HGTV, a channel I frequently. One of my favorite parts about HGTV is that it features lots of normal, everyday gay people, but never makes a big deal about it. On any given episode of the network’s various shows, couple (or the occasional singleton) who’s buying/selling/renovating/appraising their home might be straight or gay. But their sexual orientation is neither downplayed, nor emphasized.
Granted, I’m sure this is no accident. I have no empirical data. But experience tells me that HGTV probably has a disproportionately gay audience. So I’m sure the network would strive to reflect that audience in its programing. Likewise, a larger gay viewership would naturally lead to more gay participation in HGTV shows , which would also increase the gay presence on the air.
So does the network’s sexual-orientation-as-nonissue stance make make HGTV similar in marketing strategy to the Orbitz ad? Or does its heavy gay demographic put it closer in philosophy to ads like the ones for Budweiser and Levi’s that end up only in niche markets? Not that the answer has to be one or the other, of course.
5 InfoMofo // Jul 29, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Yeah I don’t get it. why would they have booked on separate websites if they’re doinking?
6 Michael // Jul 29, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I can’t get past my ambivalence about commercials–any commercials–themselves. I suppose the argument is that it would be a step forward to see a smiling lesbian couple among those who rejoice at the efficacy of a new soft drink, or a smiling male couple espousing a new diet plan–”My husband can’t keep his hands off me!” Sigh. I imagine so. To want to be included is to want to be included even in the idiotic expressions of the culture–even though to be recognized in commercials is simply to be targeted, manipulated, and to have your intelligence insulted in the interest of provoking your spending. I GUESS I want in the game . . . (I have in mind an ancient Mad Magazine parody of inclusive commercials from the sixties: a man among the women sporting Maidenform bras, an African-American among the tanners in a Coppertone ad . . .)
7 Collin H // Jul 30, 2009 at 9:18 am
“That’s refreshing, you know? Sometimes, it’s nice to be part of the regular picture, instead of being stuck in some special frame that’s hanging a few feet down the wall.”
I can’t agree with this statement more. In order for homosexuality to be accepted as normal, it needs to be portrayed as normal, not a special, also-ran ad campaign.
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