Communicating with The Pink Pound today - Jason Pollock - Chief Executive of Pride
Communicating with The Pink Pound today
Jason Pollock - Chief Executive of Pride, stresses the importance of the gay community to business and public sector communicators and marketeers. Jason is also a freelance advisor on LGBT communications and marketing, and a director of gay travel company, Embark.
35 years ago, way back in 1972, a year etched in gay social history, a handful of brave souls calling themselves the Gay Liberation Front, startled shoppers in Oxford Street one dull summer Saturday morning by staging an unauthorised protest march. They were demanding equal rights for gay and lesbian people. The march was firmly suppressed by the police and widely condemned in the right wing press. But the seeds were cast on that day, for a long hard struggle ahead for basic rights for gay people to live in harmony and equality within the wider community.
This year gay men and women will again gather in Oxford Street. Not marching in political protest but ‘parading’ accompanied by sponsored floats, bands and highly creative costumes. The Pride Parade is, nowadays, watched by countless thousands lining its three-mile route and is officially recognised as London’s second largest family tourist attraction next to the Notting Hill Carnival. Pride London also has a massive international profile rivalling the long established Sydney Mardi Gras and is prompted throughout the world by our tourist boards. Pride is now big business bringing an estimated £1 billion to the tourism industry last summer alone.
Curiously the level of capitalisation from the communications industry is relatively low. It’s still an untapped market. Whilst the struggle for equality has been keenly fought and largely won the marketing and comms industry has been cautiously peering over the parapet at what we gays represent economically and socially. The results, however, for those who have done their homework and decided to invest in this sector can be impressive. The facts are that over the last decade more and more people have felt able, due to an improvement in acceptance levels, to ‘come out’ to their family, friends and in the work place. In Britain, at least, gays have never had it so good. Recent surveys prove that the Pink Pound, DINKS or whatever marketing speak you want to use is now worth a fortune in consumer sales. The gay market represents around 10% of the population and can earn, on average, up to £10,000 annually more than straights, Gay men and lesbians take at least two to three more short breaks and one extra long haul holiday each year and spend impressive amounts on state of the art electrical goods and seasonal fashion. “Where gays lead other will follow,” said The Evening Standard not so long ago. This has now become an unassailable fact.
So how does blue chip land reach this cash cow? It is known that once hooked on a product gays remain fiercely brand loyal, but in order to earn this loyalty brands cannot simply assume that one advisement catches all. It doesn’t work that way.
This is equally true of public sector communications where most current campaigns are also aimed fairly and squarely at the family market. Nothing wrong in that. It’s 90% of the population after all but add a little twist, a hint of a gay aspect and you have already endeared your brand to that important and often lucrative extra 10%. Go one step further and link your product to a gay event sponsorship programme, support a gay charity or promote in the gay press. Demonstrating positively that you care about the LGBT community and we are yours for life! Quite frankly it’s what inclusive communications are all about.
Another encouraging trend is the newfound liaison that some corporations and manufacturing companies have formed between marketing and HR Equality units. Companies are beginning to listen to their gay staff. Some are joining the Stonewall Register for example and finding out how to recruit and nurture gays and lesbians in the work place. Aware brands like Ford, BT, Lloyds TSB, IBM, and British Airways have consulted with their own LGBT groups for many years and wisely seek their advice as to how to best communicate, not only their messages of equality as required by the law, but also how to promote their products to the gay community.
Learning about us and communicating with us makes good commercial and social sense. I believe those freedom fighters 35 years ago would be proud to know that those early battles for liberation have finally begun to bear fruit.
