Introduction: Gay Subculture in America
Subcultures can be defined as the individual domains which fall within the canopy of a giant culture. The American society has been marked with various subcultures defined by their ethnicity, habits, rituals, age-groups, etc. However, each of the subculture is truly American in spite of their individual preferences and choices of living life. Among these various cultures, the most controversial one has been the presence of the LGBT (Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual, and Transgender) community members. However, the term ‘Gay’ stands as the community identity for this entire subculture because a lot of upheavals have occurred in the American Socio-political system related to the social presence of gays and their rights like gay marriage, gay parenting, etc. This research paper aims at exploring the latest demographic stats for the Gays in America along with other common traits of this subculture and finally tries to develop the marketing implications for the gay consumers in the country by using the assimilated facts.
Gay Subculture: Demographics, values, and social presence
The Centre for Disease control and prevention conducted a nationwide research in July 2015 and came up with a joint census for about 1.6 % of total population being gays and 0.75 being bisexuals (Cook, 2015). However, another survey by the Gallup international came up with a twice high figure of 3.6% in their nationwide survey (conducted in May 2015) for the gays and lesbians in the American society (Brody, 2015). Thus, it can be clearly seen that the census driven by the motif of sexual orientation of America have concluded relatively less strength of the gay subculture in the country. The unique aspect of gay subculture comes from the fact that gays believe in living a normal lifestyle and with gradual social acceptance of their presence and practices (gay marriage, gay parenthood) they are more evenly harmonized with the other subcultures in the American society.
Another striking feature of this subculture lies in its presence in the American society. The Gallup survey conducted in July 2015 also came up with an extremely interesting fact that the survey poll conducted across America estimated that almost 23% of the Americans were gays (Brody, 2015). This opinion poll highlights the relevance of the well-entrenched gay subculture and their social presence related perception developed in the American society. Thus, it can be inferred that along with the legal, political, and social acceptance of the gay subculture, its presence in the American society is no more unusual for rest of the society and other subcultures.
Marketing implications for the Gay subculture and associated products
The gay couples are more eager in establishing and setting-up a balanced household as a mode of justifying their conviction that they are at par with the heterosexual couples and they can be equally influenced by usual role models of the advertising media (Gomillion & Giuliano, 2011). There are some unique findings related to the gay consumer markets that have enough potential to attract the marketing teams across the globe towards this segment. These unique attributes of the gay consumer market are:
The estimates of buying power of the gay subculture consider it to be a market of $800 billion. The gay consumer’s preferences are well defined across most of the product categories like consumer goods, food products, housing, etc. (Fuller, 2013).
Gay couples are found to make almost 16% more trips than normal families and this increases there spending by almost 25% of the contemporaries (Fuller, 2013).
Almost 26% of gays are found to have as strong brand loyalty and almost 65% of these loyal customers confirm spreading the word of mouth for their brands as well (Valenti, 2016).
The research team of Simmons Market Bureau came out with findings that gays are twice more likely to buy vacation homes, six times more likely to purchase home theatres, and eight times more likely to buy laptops than the heterosexual buyers (Valenti, 2016).
Suggested marketing mix for gay consumers: 4 P’s for Electronic goods
Product: Owing to higher proclivity of the gay consumers for electronic goods, the suggested marketing mix is designed for this category for products, viz. home theatre, laptop, etc.
Pricing: There are no specific pricing barriers for the gay consumers as per their higher spending tendencies. Therefore, the product pricing can be premium for all categories of offered products.
Place: The place of promotion for the launch of given range of products exclusively targeting the gay consumers need to be similar to those used generally for all consumers. This is possible because the gay consumers are a well established part of the normal American society.
Promotion: The audio-visual advertisement featuring mainstream imagery, implicit and explicit gay male imagery, and all other types of gender oriented brand imagery can be useful in positioning the products to both the gays and the heterosexual customers equally (Oakenfull, 2013).
Conclusion
The research paper has used a focused list of secondary data gathered from market research conducted for evaluating the gay market preferences. These gay consumer preferences are then used to form a marketing mix for the most highly spent category of products, the electronic consumer goods. It is quite evident via this research that the gay consumers can be effectively targeted via audio-visual ads which also ensure nil alienation for heterosexuals as well.
References
Brody, B.(2015).Americans Vastly Overestimate Size of Gay and Lesbian Population. Bloomberg News. Retrieved online from http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-22/americans-vastly-overestimate-size-of-lgbt-population
Cook, L.(2015). Where Does Gay America Live? A new Gallup analysis provides location data for a relatively unexamined American population.US News. Retrieved online from http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2015/03/20/new-data-offer-picture-of-gay-america
Fuller, B.(2013).Here's How Some Brands Have Subtly Won Over the LGBT Community. Business Insider. Retrieved online from http://www.businessinsider.com/lgbt-community-untapped-market-consumer-brands-2013-6?IR=T
Gomillion, S.C. & Giuliano, T.(2011).The Influence of Media Role Models on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identity. Journal of Homosexuality, 58 (1), 330–354.
Oakenfull, G.W.(2013).What Matters: Factors Influencing Gay Consumers’ Evaluations of “Gay-Friendly” Corporate Activities. American Marketing Association. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 32(1), 79-89.
Valenti, C.(2016). Companies Begin Marketing to Gay Market. abc news. Retrieved online http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=89595&page=1
