Gay Advertisement #11: LAN Airlines Denies Involvement In Controversial Ads

A string of outdoor transit advertisements recently appeared across San Francisco promoting uber-gay-friendly LAN Airlines.  The ads implore viewers to “Bareback in Brazil,” and feature a tourist riding horseback.  While clever, the double entendre is in very poor taste, but a LAN Airlines representative says the company had nothing to do with the ads.

Megan Haney, a spokesperson for LAN, explains: “The advertisements were published without our approval and the point of view, choice of wording and use of the LAN Airlines logo was done without our consent. We have asked that the advertisements be removed immediately.”

LAN Airlines markets heavily to the San Francisco’s gay population and recently served as the offical airline of San Francisco Pride 2010.

GLAAD Archives Showcase Gay-Oriented Ads

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the seminal monitor of all gay media, has compiled an impressive collection of gay-oriented advertisements over the years, and you can browse through them here.  Every ad is scored based on how it portrays the GLBT community on such crtieria as same sex affection, racial and age diversity, gay pride, same sex couples, and GLBT punchline.

GLAAD’s collection has over 2500 print ads and over 14oo television commercials, and it includes any ad that may be construed as “gay,” no matter who the target is or how vague the gay reference is.  At OGM, I like to focus on ads that target the gay community, and I usually choose ads broadcast within the United States.  The vast majority of the ads on GLAAD’s website are North American (59%), but unfortunately, only 42% of all ads portray the GLBT community in a positive light.  The other 58% are classified as Neutral (31%), Negative (16%), and Stereotype (10%).  I find it startling that over a fourth of the ads portray us negatively or in a stereotypical way.

It would be interesting to break down how the ads score by geographic region, but GLAAD doesn’t give that stat.  Judging by the scores on the first few pages of ads and from my own personal experience, I would be willing to bet that the U.S. ads score much worse in terms of how they portray the GLBT community.  The sad truth is, the U.S. marketing community is light years behind some of our progressive European counterparts when it comes to how we portray gays and lesbians in mainstream media.

Gay Advertisement #1: Levi’s

This is one of my favorite gay-targeted ads for a few reasons.  The messaging is simple and impactful, the production quality is first-rate, it doesn’t overtly use sex to sell, and Levi’s get’s bonus points for using the Peter, Bjorn, and John song “Up Against the Wall” from their album “Writers Block” (great song, great album, great band).

What’s really genius about this ad is that Levi’s piggy-backed on its budget to make a straight-oriented commercial to produce the gay-targeted one.  Below is the same ad targeted at our heterosexual friends.  A pet peeve of mine is when companies that normally produce high quality commercials shirk on their marketing dollars by producing low-budget, low quality ads to target gays.  By simply replacing the chick in the phone booth with a dude, Levi’s was able to produce a top quality gay ad without breaking the bank.