As you read this, I will be boarding a flight to London. From there I will be flying to San Francisco for a 2 week holiday, or 'vacation' as they say over there.
Posts will be few and far between. But stick around. Find me on Instagram for the photos that will no doubt come.
I'm not even sure what that title means, I stole it from PSFK. The whole thing is 'What is the Future of Same Sex Advertising?'
Hmm. It's a good question, but I don't even know what 'same sex advertising' is. The article says, "a handful of brands have been targeting the LGBT demographic..." and then goes on to talk about JC Penney, Ellen and all that, but targeting? How, exactly? To the gay lifestyle which is obviously hugely different to a hetrosexual lifestyle? Or is it just because the feature a homosexual couple? Either way, how these ads are targeted to gay people is beyond me. I suppose you could argue that if the ads were featured in magazines targeted at gay people then they're, well targeted at gay people, but that just brings up the whole problem that we've still got (or still need) this division between gay and 'straight' magazines.
And then there's the title. 'Same sex advertising' isn't going to change - advertising is. And if you're defining GAP, J.Crew and Ray Ban's recent ads as 'same sex advertising', then is all other advertising 'hetro advertising'? No. It's just advertising.
As far as I'm concerned the future of 'same sex advertising' is the same future of different sex (?) advertisng. So, what then is the future of advertising? Well that's a pretty big question, but I'm pretty sure it'll probably feature some gay couples. I'm not sure how they'll be 'targeted', and I don't think it will make gay people want to buy anything any more than usual, but it will be nice to see more brands show that they don't give a rat's arse about who loves who.
More than can be said for 'normal' Mike considering his response to the PSFK article.
If anyone has any views on this I'd love to hear them. I'm really open for a discussion.
Great argument from a retired Superior Court Judge.
