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The Recession is Biting, But Guess Who’s Still Spending? New Market Research Released


WEBWIRE

New research reveals that gay consumers can offer marketers a new and steady revenue source at a time when the overall market is slowing.

High levels of gay market spending in Ireland on credit cards, internet shopping, music downloading and more are giving many marketers good reason to sit up and take notice of a multi-billion value market many have not previously considered - the gay and lesbian consumer market.

Lesbian and gay men remain relatively under-targeted and can offer suppliers of consumer goods, tourism, clothing, homewares, technology and other consumer spend categories significant new marketing opportunities.

Today’s research reveals just how much gays and lesbian consumers are spending on a broad range of consumer categories.

The research shows that gay and lesbian consumers offer marketers significant opportunities to grow their revenues during the country’s worst economic conditions in more than 20 years.

The ’Out Now GCN Readership Survey’ is the most comprehensive analysis ever of the 195,000 gays and lesbians living in Ireland.

The research shows this group earned over €8.75 billion in 2007.

Gay consumers spent in excess of €58 million on fashion last year, more than €33 million on grooming products and put a total of €16 million on their credit cards during a year of enthusiastic shopping.

Various consumer categories were tested, enabling a total value to be placed on the worth of annual gay consumer spending on a range of key consumer items.

The research was undertaken by leading global gay marketing strategy company, Out Now for GCN, Ireland’s much-loved gay glossy magazine, which reaches the grand old age of 21 next February and has a readership of 33,120.

"Gays and lesbians are obviously not immune to the effects of the general economy,” says Ian Johnson, CEO of Out Now Consulting.

“But as a market grouping with much less competitive brand noise, and the positive effects on household disposable incomes of very large numbers of Double Income No Kids (DINK) consumers, the gay market makes a lot of sense for mainstream brands to target - especially at this time of recessionary fears" Johnson says.

Johnson elaborated: “This research shows that gay consumers offer a significant new market opportunity for companies in a number of consumer categories that are currently hurting because of the recession in Ireland. Brands looking to find smarter ways to allocate tight marketing budgets would do very well to assess the strategic opportunities delivered by Ireland’s 195,000 lesbian and gay consumers. Targeting this very brand-aware, extremely loyal market simply makes for smart business. That has always been the case, but this market is relevant now more than ever as marketers need to direct limited marketing budgets towards consumer target markets with the greatest disposable spend potential"

According to Brian Finnegan, Managing Editor of GCN: “A new, diverse trend has grown in advertising towards the gay community of late. While luxury lifestyle brands continue to be perceived as relevant to gay consumers, more and more everyday issues and products are targeting this market. Among those seeing the potential of the gay market at the moment are financial institutions, financial advisors, diversity employers, and also household brand names such HMV, Vodafone, Canon, Swatch and Meteor.”

For further information on this release, please contact Ian Johnson or Brian Finnegan - contact details below.

Notes to editors:

For copyright reasons, any reference to this information must include the following research reference: “Out Now GCN Gay Market Study”.

GCN is Ireland’s leading gay and lesbian media product.

Out Now is a leading global gay marketing specialist agency. For two decades Out Now has been relied on for gay marketing research and strategies by brands including Barclays, Hilton, Lufthansa, Orange, IBM, Toyota and Citibank. On November 12 Ian Johnson presents the ’Out Now Gay Marketing Masterclass’ to the largest travel and tourism trade show, London (WTM) World Travel Market.

More information on this story is available at http://www.GayMarketNews.com

Ian Johnson
Founder and CEO, Out Now
Phone: +44-(0)20-8123 5288
Email: info(at)outnowconsulting.com
http://www.OutNowConsulting.com

Brian Finnegan
Managing Editor GCN (Gay Community News)
editor(at)gcn.ie
Phone (+353) 1 671 9076
http://www.gcn.ie



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