The flagging 2001 economy produced the first revenue slide for the gay press since reporting began in 1994, but despite cutbacks advertisers are also increasingly tailoring their efforts to win the market.
Advertising spending in gay publications dropped a modest 1.7% to $208.1 million last year, compared to a heartier loss of 6.2% among general consumer magazines, says the latest Gay Press Report from Rivendell Marketing and Prime Access.
The drop follows the second-highest growth year on record for gay media, in 2000, and a long period of expansion. Ad revenues have quadrupled since 1994's $53 million and previously enjoyed consecutive double-digit gains annually: 1995--16.2%, 1996--19%, 1997--36.7%, 1998--20.2%, 1999--29%, 2000--36.3%.
The 2001 picture wasn't bad for all. When breaking out local from national gay publications, the report showed ad gains of between 7% and 10% for local newspapers. Hearty ad increases were also felt by publications dedicated to arts & entertainment ( up 36.8% ) , like New York City's HX and Atlanta's etc. magazine, or listings resources ( up 28.6% ) , like The Guide and Metrosource. Losses were mainly felt at the national glossy magazines, such as The Advocate and Genre, which were down 30.1%.
Additionally, circulation drops affected nearly all, down 11% to a combined 1.94 million readers for local publications and down 15% to 828,000 for national magazines. Such losses made it harder for advertisers to achieve a critical mass in the already difficult-to-reach market.
Circuit parties and music/film both got less ad support, down 9.1% and 1.4% respectively. Particularly hard hit were classified ads, falling 32.4%, and small business card-like ads, down a whopping 80.1%. But the categories that came in strongest were financial services, which rose 32.2%, alcoholic beverages was up 25%, as well as medical/health, health/fitness and retail/ home.
Gay Messages Grow in Popularity
The report also tracks advertising subject matter and found that corporate ads custom made for gay readers jumped by over a third, increasing 34.2%. The trend is primarily in national magazines, rather than for local newspapers, and still represents just 5.1% of the total. Among new arrivals this year with gay-specific ads are Bridgestone, Lufthansa, orbitz.com, and the troubled US Airways.
"If it hadn't been a down year, these would've really been up," says Evans. "Even if 2002 is down, gay-specific ads will still be up. It's a trend that can't do anything but go up because anyone that's going to make an effort here is going to try because they see that's what they have to do to fit in."
When polled about what types of ads corporations should run, the opinions of visitors to Commercial Closet Association's Web site, CommercialCloset.org, varied. About 21% of 1,000 polled said that ads should feature gay-specific pictures, while 17.9% thought mainstream ads would work--so long as they didn't picture heterosexual couples. But a majority, 52.8%, said that ads should be a mix of both. Surprisingly, a number of ads still show opposite-sex couples in gay magazines, including Altoids, Armani, Bacardi, Camel, Captain Morgan, Dolce & Gabbana, Kahlua, Puma and others.
Reflecting on the popularity of picturing shirtless men in gay men's magazine ads--particularly favored among fashion brands like Abercrombie & Fitch and Calvin Klein and beer advertisers like Miller Brewing Co. and Anheuser Busch--most visitors to CommercialCloset.org said they liked them, with 48.8% of 1,500 respondents calling them "sexy/memorable." However, a large portion, 34% also answered that such an approach was "predictable/boring," another 14% were neutral on the matter and 3.1% even found them "offensive."
Changes Expected for Gay Market Report
This year's report reflects the data of 284 publications, a reduction of 15 papers and magazines that went out of business since April 2000, but Todd Evans, president of Rivendell, also hopes to add online media for the 2002 report, due in early 2003.
Negotiations to add online media have been under way for the last two years but requires agreements with PlanetOut Partners, which owns the two largest gay Web sites, planetout.com and gay.com .
The annual Gay Press Report was founded by the now-defunct Mulryan/Nash gay marketing agency and was acquired in 1999 by Rivendell, which represents most gay newspapers nationally for advertising.
Minority marketing agency Prime Access became a partner the following year.
The report tracks ads just in April publications--considered an average month-- and projects the revenue for the year. Because of increasing volatility in the ad market, says Evans, adding another month to the report's data is under consideration. He confides that 2001 seemed to turn even more sour after the April reporting period and that the 2002 report may follow with much greater revenue losses.
With some dread, Evans says, "2002 looks like it'll be terrible, but we won't know until we have the numbers."
Mike Wilke's Commercial Closet is a biweekly column covering gay issues in advertising, marketing and media--part of the non-profit project tracking 85 years of gay images in advertising worldwide. Its 1000+ image archive is at www.CommercialCloset.org .
