The problem with gay advertising

[DonViejo]

Chevrolet, Allstate, Honey Maid -- why is it so hard for these companies to pander without condescending?

DANIEL D'ADDARIO

NPR this week ran a story that will surprise no one who’s picked up any gay-interest magazine over the past several years: advertising, more and more, is aware that gay people exist and is thus pitching products at that share of the market. And so, this being advertising and not social work, gay people are naturally treated less as people and more as unthinking money dispensers for corporations. Said one Adweek staff writer: “If you’re not appealing to every minority community, be that racial or in terms of sexual orientation, you’re missing out on market share.”

That’s right — appealing to minority communities is what corporations should do in order to make sure they don’t miss out on those sweet gay dollars. It’s transparently what advertising has always been about, but in an era in which high-profile ad campaigns like the Cheerios spot featuring a multiracial family have been treated as a self-explanatory social good, the discerning gay consumer will hopefully not be too swayed by ads that are meant just to cash in on demographic identity.

After all, the inclusion of gay families in a new Chevrolet ad campaign is notable just because, as the NPR piece points out, for so long most non-tobacco or -alcohol brands wanted nothing to do with gay people. It was only when the prospect of potentially alienating what the Adweek writer calls “Mr. and Mrs. Main Street Heterosexual USA” was outweighed by the upside of reeling in gay dollars that a brand deigned to engage the idea of gay people at all. The ad is a fairly condescending one, indicating that Chevrolet is safe enough for “whatever shape your family takes.” (You mean the airbags won’t be filled with mustard gas because I’m gay? Thanks!)

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http://www.salon.com/2014/07/03/the_problem_with_gay_advertising/