2010 GLAAD Media Awards In Advertising Nominee
This ad from Miller Lite, titled “Great To See You Out,” was nominated in the Outstanding Print Campaign – LGBT Market category. The GLAAD Media Awards in Advertising will take place tomorrow, September 29th, in New York City. Check back soon for a list of winners!
2010 GLAAD Media Awards In Advertising Nominee
Progressive Insurance has been nominated in the Outstanding Print Campaign – LGBT Market category for its “Works in Progress” campaign, which features historical works of art featuring gay couples. For more on this campaign, read the article I wrote for the June/July issue of Echelon Magazine (page 24).
Posted in Advertisements
Tagged gay advertisement, gay advertising, gay advertising campaign, gay marketing, GLAAD, GLAAD Media Awards in Advertising, GLBT advertising campaign, Progressive gay advertising campaign, Progressive Insurance, Progressive Insurance advertising, Progressive insurance gay advertising
2010 GLAAD Media Awards in Advertising Nominee
This ad for Tylenol PM is nominated in the Outstanding Print Ad – LGBT Market category. I especially like the clever incorporation of the rainbow into the Tylenol PM logo. Tylenol has been a proud sponsor of the Human Rights Campaign since 2003, and is a regular supporter of Pride events around the country.
2010 GLAAD Media Awards in Advertising Nominee
This K-Y print ad is nominated in the Outstanding Print Campaign – Mainstream Market category. Geoffrey and Rusty were voted one of “America’s Top Couples” in a contest in conjunction with the company’s “K-Y Couples” campaign. Kudos to K-Y for including a gay couple in its contest and running the ad in mainstream media.
Sometimes I wonder about marketers’ thought processes when launching incredibly ill-conceived ad campaigns. Such is the case with Florida-based RDCA Karate’s recent print ad endeavor which goes beyond poor taste – it’s downright offensive. See below and judge for yourself.
Why don’t the advertisers just come out and say “Don’t let your son grow up to be a sissified queer – enroll him in karate lessons!” Who in their right mind okayed these ads to go to print? Did no one foresee the tidal wave of backlash these ads would cause? RDCA Karate isn’t large enough for GLAAD to get involved, but news reports denouncing the ads have flooded the internet. Oh to be a fly on the wall the day the marketing minds at RDCA and their ad agency conceived this brilliant idea.
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.
Posted in Advertisements, Observations
Tagged Bareback in Brazil, gay ads, gay advertisement, LAN Airlines, LAN Airlines Bareback in Brazil, LAN Airlines controversial ad, LAN Airlines denies ad, LAN AIrlines gay ad, LAN Airlines gay marketing, LAN AIrlines Muni ad, LAN Airlines San Francisco, Megan Haney, San Francisco Muni gay ad
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.
Posted in For Marketers, Observations
Tagged gay ads, gay advertisement, gay and lesbian advertising, gay and lesbian marketing, gay commercial, gay media, gay print ads, gay television commercials, gays portrayed in media, GLAAD, GLAAD archive, GLAAD library, GLBT ads, GLBT advertisement, GLBT commercial, GLBT media
Apparently, a slew of Manhunt.com banner ads have recently appeared on the Sports Illustrated website SI.com (as reported on OutSports.com). Manhunt representative Michael McDonald says these ads were not a direct buy, but were part of a larger buy with ad network Dedicated Media. If you’ve ever made a large buy with any online ad network, you know why this is interesting.
For those of you who haven’t, here’s how it works: When you make the buy you are guaranteed a certain number of impressions for your ads. Initially, your ads will likely show up on hundreds or even thousands of websites depending on how targeted you want to get (the less targeted, the more impressions you are guaranteed). All of the media networks have algorithmic systems that optimize your ads to ensure you get the highest click-thru rate possible for your ad campaign. This means that over time your ads will only show up on websites where the click-thru rate is the highest. So if Manhunt ads are regularly appearing on SI.com, apparently there are a lot of sports fans clicking through to Manhunt.com.
I can’t say I’m all that surprised. I’ve always felt that of all the gay subcultures the gay male sports fan is one of the most underestimated and under-targeted. Furthermore, websites like Manhunt.com is a virtual cyber playground for “bi-curious” and closeted “straight” guys – the kind who would never dare set foot in a gay bar and have to resort to online sex sites to satisfy their homosexual urges. Not that I’m knocking it- we’ve all gotta get it where we can! Happy hunting sports fans!
