Advertising the Queer Body

We are exposed to copious amounts of advertising a day, so much so in fact that most of the advertising we are taking in is actually happening subconsciously. This statement is founded in Science and Math and other important life skills that my Liberal Arts degree has not prepared me for yet I will quote now. 

A new study of media usage and ad exposure by Media Dynamics, Inc. reveals that a typical person's daily media consumption has grown from 5.2 hours in 1945 to 9.8 hours (or 590 minutes a day). This increase in consumption, in addition to the Yankelovich study, supports the ideology that message and brand “exposure” can range from 3,000 to 20,000 every day for a normal media consumer. The higher numbers in this ratio not only include ads, but also include every time you pass by a label in a grocery store, all the ads in your mailbox whether you see them or not, the label on everything you wear, the condiments in your fringe, the cars on the highway, etc. 
Basically, advertising is everywhere and we cannot escape it. No one is safe. Big Brother is Watching. Soylent Green is People. 

http://giphy.com/gifs/damn-this-movie-soylent-green-cgvewuCvtnn7W

That was a #FLAWLESS 70's reference that no one ever seems to get because apparently no one is cares for Dystopian Cult Classics.  I digress. 

Advertising doesn’t just offer the right product to the right consumer at the right time. It gets them emotionally motivated to investigate and ultimately to buy the advertised product or service. That’s why engagement has become so important and why companies and corporations spends SO MUCH MONEY on advertisements. So integrating this new research with the accepted number of probably around 5,000 exposures per day, along with other proprietary research, this is how we can look at it:

• Average number of advertisement and brand exposures per day per person: 5,000+
• Average number of “ads only” exposures per day: 362
• Average number of “ads only” noted per day: 153
• Average number of “ads only” that we have some awareness of per day: 86
• Average number of “ads only” that made an impression (engagement): 12

KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW NOW, LET'S GET TO WHY THIS MATTERS:

http://giphy.com/gifs/broadcity-broad-city-ilana-glazer-hail-to-the-kween-l2R077quXSVyuV4bK

I've been watching a lot of Broad City lately, don't judge me. 

Public acceptance of the LGBTQA+ community, growing political support for Marriage Equality, and the prevalence of Queer and Trans characters on film and television are signalling a deep cultural shift at work in the United States since that fateful episode of Ellen. And brands are taking notice.

Advertising to the Queer Community was once left to the fringes. But as America’s straight public grows more accepting and older oppressive heteronormative views start to deteriorate, "Gay-Friendly" ads aren’t the statements they used to be – they’re becoming the new normal. Thank Goddess. 

Gap used a real gay couple for its “Be Bright” campaign. This billboard was displayed above a busy street in Hollywood, CA. Image via dailybillboard.blogspot.ca

http://sparksheet.com/the-new-normal-why-lgbt-advertising-is-going-mainstream/

Ray Ban’s 2011 “Never Hide” print ad campaign featured a series of bold acts. A gay couple holding hands in public is one of them.

Matthew Wagner, the Account Supervisor at Target 10, a New York City marketing firm that works with brands specifically so that they can reach gay consumers, told Bustle in an interview discussing Queer media and advertising. "Gay millennials tend to have the view that most companies are at minimum neutral toward and at best strongly embrace their identities."

Wagner went on to say that "The bar for LGBT marketing has been raised higher than ever ... campaigns need to be truly impactful through a combination of insights, messaging, tonality, and knowledge." 

Though I am pretty stoked to be seeing "Gay-Friendly" ads making their way into the mainstream, I will say that during the majority of my research for this blog post was showing images of mainly Cis-White Gay Men and very few variations of this archetype. 

My push back would be that though Queer advertisements seems to be permeating the American public more so now that an, it does in fact need to be QUEER ADVERTISING, meaning that ALL BODIES/ALL RELATIONSHIPS/ALL GENDERS/ALL FORMS OF YAS QUEEN  need to be presented as well. 

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- K