Ad Spotlight: CVS Health

Read more here.

How Gay Themes in Ads Become Mainstream

Nice article from Business Insider worth a read, highlighting companies like Amazon, JCPenney, Macy's, and American Airlines.

The Risky Business of Courting LGBT Customers

"Although there may be very specific types of businesses that have to be very careful, the ultimate reality appears to be that most people do not feel strongly enough to stop patronizing corporations that target this market. In actual fact, it increasing seems like the opposite may be true - companies that aren't seen as conforming to the new norms may find it harder to attract and retain the customers and employers they want." 

Read the full story at Investopedia. 

Ad Spotlight: Target

Target recently unveiled this ad promoting their wedding registry to same-sex couples. Read more here.

Target launches pride shirts to support the Family Equality Council

Just in time for pride next month, Target has launched a line of gay pride tee-shirts, available for purchase here. Every penny of the $12.99 purchase price is going directly to the Family Equality Council. Nice to seem them putting money behind a true brand effort and not trying to make a quick buck off this. 

Ad Spotlight: Gap

JCPenny Stands by Ellen Degeneres as New Spokesperson

As part of a corporate rebranding, JCPenny recently redesigned their logo (shown) and hired Ellen Degeneres as their new spokesperson. The latter decision didn't sit well with the social conservative group "One Million Moms," who started a vicious campaign to try and get JCPenny to change their minds. Well, they're not changing their minds, and Ellen took some time out of her show the other day to respond:

And JCPenny's CEO, Ron Johnson, reiterated their stance in support of Ellen this morning on CBS. Click here to watch.

Big Gay Ice Cream Shop Opens in NYC

Building on thee Success of the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, there's now a Big Gay Ice Cream Shop in New on Seventh Street between First Avenue and Avenue A. Popular flavors include the Salty Pimp (vanilla soft-serve with dulce de leche, sea salt and chocolate dip) and the Monday Sundae (twist soft-serve in a nutella-lined waffle cone, dulce de leche, sea salt and whipped cream). The store also carries Melt Bakery ice cream sandwiches, macaroons from Danny's Macaroons, brownies and cookies from Treats Truck and root beer floats.


Here is a resource www.onlinecookingclasses.org for those of you who also love food and cooking and want to learn new skills.

Old Navy Launches Pride-Themed T-Shirts

Yesterday, Old Navy released a line of Pride-themed T-shirts. 10% of the proceeds will go to the "It Gets Better" project. A spokeswoman for the store released a statement saying, "our customers and employees are of many different ethnicities, faiths and lifestyles, and we support them all.” 

Marc Jacobs Promotes New York Marriage Equality

This week, fashion designer Marc Jacobs revealed a window display promoting marriage equality in his Bleecker Street store in New York City. The display specifically promotes the HRC's New Yorkers for marriage equality campaign. Learn more here. 

J. Crew Just Got Even Gayer

After last month's uproar caused by a J. Crew catalog photo of a mom painting her son's toenails, the retailer seems to be just thrilled with the buzz and earned media it has generated. Why? they just issued their May catalog, which features, you guessed it, a man and his boyfriend. 

My Thoughts on the J. Crew Photo Firestorm

By this time I'm sure everyone has heard of the infamous J. Crew photo of a mother painting her son's toenails, which appeared in an email advertisement to existing J. Crew customers. The photo is of Jenna Lyons, the company's creative director, and her son. And as you know, it has sparked outrage around the country and (again) reignited the conversation on "appropriate gender roles for children."


I say good for J. Crew. But I honestly don't believe this was intended to spark such a response. I think it's fitting with their brand and doesn't really isolate their base of existing online customers who have opted into their email list. The photo seems to be on a page that's selling the idea of taking some time off to play with your kids, which is a nice way to position a clothing brand like J. Crew at the turn of the season to busy working middle-upper class moms. Nice to see a "real" portrayal of the mom here- note how she's not all done up in makeup, checking her Blackberry, and cooking dinner at the same time. 


I won't go into my thoughts on why this is harmless, because I think most of my readers know the difference between gender identity and sexual orientation. But I will say that I find it really interesting that the people opposed to the photo demonize the mother. "Imagine how he'll be treated in school," they say, implying that he'll be picked on by all the boys for not conforming to a display of masculinity that conforms to cultural norms. Perhaps what this photo really illustrates is a culture that oppresses women- because we'd rather vilify a devoted mother for playing harmlessly with her child than question a cultural gender code that correlates neon pigmented lacquer with homosexuality. Wake up, America. 

Macy's to Test "Spring Break" Promotion in Chicago This Weekend

In an effort to depart from the outdated traditional department store image, Macy's will test what looks like a pretty interesting promotion targeting college students this weekend in Chicago. The event will happen on Saturday from 2-5pm at their State Street store. It's slated to include sales, giveaways, drinks and live music. They've promoted it across an array of social media and will even be sending vans to all area college campuses on Saturday to bus students to and from the store. In recent months, I've noticed a noticeable change in their men's inventory and now get all my Diesel stuff there when they have sales. I even opened up a Macy's charge... I'm becoming more and more like my mother. Anyways, read more about the promotion here. 

Starbucks Unveils New Logo

(photo credit: Associated Press)

Yesterday, Starbucks unveiled its new logo, as seen on the cup on the right of this photo. Previous logos are on the cups to the left of it. Most notably, the new logo doesn't contain the word "coffee" or even the name "Starbucks."


According to this Wall Street Journal article, the new logo reflects the company's new emphasis on selling Starbucks-brand products in supermarkets and other channels beyond its retail stores.

Gap Restores Old Logo

After thousands of negative comments on Facebook and blogs, Gap has removed their old clip-art logo and gone back to this traditional one. More info here. 

GAP Has a New Logo...

And the response isn't good. The blog community is pretty much repulsed and AdAge called it Clipart. What do you think?

Boycott Target TV Ad To Begin Airing Tomorrow

Tomorrow, MoveOn.org will start running this anti-Target ad in Minnesota and nationally on Msnbc. Unfortunately, it doesn't call out with any level of specificity that Target supported an anti-equality candidate. It only goes as far as to reference "buying elections," which I doubt will be enough to convince those who already aren't aware of the situation to participate in the boycott. 

Anti-Target Flash Mob... In a Target!

Wow. Just when Target's PR folks thought they were out of the woods...

Meet the Grandma That's Our New Hero

Take a look at this awesome YouTube video a mom/grandmother made against Target. This was in response to their $150,000 donation toward a candidate that opposes equal rights for gay and lesbian citizens. The store is in major PR crisis mode now, facing a nationwide backlash and boycott for their move. 

5 Lessons The Gay Rights Movement Can Learn From Mary Portas

I love this. Mary Portas is the founder of a shopper marketing agency in the UK, and I just came across this article that Michelle Penny wrote about how the lessons Mary teaches to businesses apply equally to the fight for LGBT equality:

1. Focus On The Why

The reason so many of the businesses that Mary deals with are failing is because they’ve lost focus on the “Why”.  These businesses know what they want to do, which is sell their goods, but have lost the vision, the “why” that gave them the passion to start in the beginning, and the “why” which makes them stand out from the rest.

And it’s that same “why” which cause many gay rights campaigns fail to have an impact. It is all too easy to get focused on what we want – equality, gay marriage, protection from discrimination – but forget to let everyone know the why. And that why is the most important bit. Why is what creates the passion, the sense of community. The desire to act.

Tell people that you want gay marriagem and  they might sign your petition. Tell people the whys, like you being able to take your partner’s hand and walk out of the church in front of friends and family together like you’ve always dreamt of, but at the moment can’t, and you’ll find you not only have signature, but a fellow marcher at the next protest.

2.  Don’t Lose Yourself In Vagueness

Mary only needed to step inside village store Clealls to know what was wrong. It was trying to do too much. Buying in 4000 different lines meant this store was packed full of anything you could think of, not  because everyone wanted them all, but instead in the hope that by having so much that people would at least find one thing to buy. The reality though is it left them bewildered and confused.

Mary’s solution was to refine the stock and provide a much clearer message about what Clealls were offering, and it’s a lesson we as a community fighting for more equal rights can also learn from. Yes we do want equality on all levels, but to push for them all at the same time only does one thing. It dilutes the message. Shout about gay marriage one day and homophobic bullying the next, and you’re going to end up either dividing your supporters into two very different groups.. either that or just end up confusing everyone so much they give up.

3.  Don’t Try To Be Everything, Focus On What You’re Best At

Few of us are blessed at being amazing at everything (though we’re sure Mary Portas is the exception to this) and it’s important to recognise this. Personally I  know I can do two things. I can write  passionately and emotively and I can stand up, fool about and make people laugh. What I can’t do is stand up and make a passionate and emotive speech.  For me it’s too much pressure on my broad gay shoulders, and  instead of giving me the buzz I get when I fool around in front of people and make them laugh, it makes me VERY VERY nervous, which in turn makes me VERY VERY poor at speaking.

And so that means I don’t do the serious stuff. I stick to (trying to) be funny and instead of making the speeches, I write the speeches for people who can pull the serious, emotive stuff  off but would readily admit they’d struggle to come up with five words by themselves.

And both of us admitting that isn’t a bad thing. It’s important we all recognise our limitations. Angela from the bakery Maher & Sons couldn’t. She felt that the only way she could achieve success in her business was for her to stay in charge of  everything. The end result was Mary and her couldn’t work together. To move forward and achieve, you have to be able to recognise that you’re not good at everything and that’s alright. Let everyone play to their strengths. Don’t try and be everything.

4. The Faces Behind The Cause Are Just As Important As The Cause Itself

The problem with many of the businesses that Mary dealt with was that they didn’t see themselves as part of the brand. They saw their business as a very separate thing from them and something that should thrive on it’s own. The reality though is people don’t connect with business structures they connect with people, so just like Mary made the Fosters sisters central to their brand with their promotional shots that now hand in their greengrocers, it’s important that our fights have faces too.

Don’t believe me? Take the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal fight. Think about that and it’s likely you don’t picture random soldiers, you picture Lieutenant Dan Choi. Whether he likes it or not, Choi has become what people connect with, not the cause. He encompasses all that the fight is about and why it must be won. Without him yes there would still be support, but would it be so passionate? I don’t think so.

5. Don’t Just Try To Get The Support Of The Community, Become Part Of It

One of the biggest problems with the village shop Clealls was that it’s owners had moved from South London, opened up the store then expected everyone to come. Expected everyone to go “Wow a friendly village store I must go in”.

It doesn’t work like that. The owners Chris and Juliet didn’t make any real effort to bond with the locals so the locals had no real feeling of connection to the store. There was nothing to pull them in apart from the 4000 very confusing product choices. Seeing that this was as much of a problem as what they were selling, Mary set about to get them working within the community and getting to know people. The result? People warmed to them, got to know them, and in turn felt a pull to the store.

And this is something that’s just as crucial in the fight for LGBT equality. We all walk past people asking us to do this or that for charity because we don’t know them. There’s no connection. Would you walk past that person if they were a friend or neighbour you say high to every morning? No, you’d stop, talk and probably sign up because you trust them. There’s a connection, and that’s important in getting people on board.

Add the personal element to your campaign and people find it very hard to say no.