Ha, I just got rid of my POS Escort for an import economy car.
Just having an ad in a gay-themes publication isn’t going to sell me, perhaps in part because I have yet to buy a gay-themed publication.

Nor would I say that you refuted anything I said, if anything, you backed it.

Actually, the myth of “gay affluence” is just that, a myth. There have been numerous studies which disprove that idea. Here are some conclusions from the studies:
* heterosexual-couple households and male same-sex-couple households have roughly equal household incomes.
* female same-sex couples bring home 18 to 20 percent less income. The economic picture for female same-sex households becomes more grim considering that at least 22 percent of lesbian couples living together have children.
* Gay men who work full-time earned as much as 27 percent less than heterosexual men in terms of race, education, location, occupation, and experience.
* Lesbians and heterosexual women have little income difference; however women as a category persistently make significantly less than their male counterparts.
* Gay, lesbian and bisexual people are found throughout the spectrum of income distribution: some are poor, a few are rich, and most are somewhere in the middle, as are most heterosexual people.
While affluence is a nice stereotype that we like to sell to ourselves, it can also have a nasty backlash, as when Justice Antonin Scalia cited the myth in his opinion in Romer vs. Evans that “high disposable income” gives gay people “disproportionate political power”. Likewise, it feeds the continuing antipathy of “special rights” crowd.
I realize that I’m not directly refuting what you’ve said above, nor am I intending to – I’m just trying to present a fuller picture. Looking at the numbers I have here, I’m a little puzzled where the extra wealth for male same-sex couple with no kids is represented in the studies, but I wonder if perhaps it’s because there are fewer long-term relationships among gay men? That’s pure speculation, though.

I agree that MOST gay men do not have large incomes, most straight men do not have large incomes either. Nonetheless, studies have shown that gay men make, on average, slightly more than their straight counterparts (In part due to higher 4-year college graduation rates)… Meaning that both gay and straight single people are about equally likely to buy a luxury car. HOWEVER, when you put these people into couples, something like 80% of straight couples have children, while only 25% of gay couples do (according to the 2000 census). Leaving a higher percentage of dual-income gay couples with increased expendable income.
Gay men, regardless of their age, are just as likely to have serious financial struggles as their heterosexual counterparts… The only difference being that gay men are significantly less likely to be making child-support payments on top of everything else.
And comparing the financial status of a single woman to a single gay man makes sense on absolutely no level. Single women make 24% less (2004 figures) than men. 30% of single women have children (2000 census). And only 26% of women have a 4-year degree or more, while 37% of gays do (average of men and women, couldn’t find men only).
Look, I’m in my upper 20’s, my friends are all in their 20’s or 30’s, and we’re all successful urbanites. Is my viewpoint skewed? Of course. But the numbers back me up. You can, of course, feel free to attack the numbers, since every census is flawed, but I hope you can at least see the intent.

In truth, if I bother to look at a car ad I’m looking at the car. So maybe I’m not a good guinea pig? Most of the car ads I see either have no people in them at all, or the people are so reduced or obscured as to be irrelevant.
My perceptions of advertising are probably quite invalid anyway. I agree to that.

For the sake of discussion… Would the Ebony ad feature a white family in a Ford Explorer? Of course not. So I suspect the Explorer ad in the Advocate would be tailored too – perhaps two smiling outdoorsy young men going camping. This would be my conjecture. The sucessful ad not only tells a little story, it brings the viewer in to the story, too, through identification. I suspect you mean the same basic ad, but would allow for the details to change?

I’d rather see the same marketing in Ebony and The Advocate as in The Washington Post, frankly. That represents a recognition that overall, the same variations of economic class and social interest are spread through the readers of each publication. And truthfully, I believe they are.

It’s always an interesting conundrum… and a catch-22. When a product is marketed for minorities with an “angle” in mind for them, it could be called exploitation. But if a product is not advertised and marketed to them with a hook meant for them, then it can be seen as prejudice. But oh well… I won’t loose any sleep over Madison Avenue types being in a moral bind. 🙂

Actually I don’t care if they advertise at all in The Advocate or whatever. But since they were already advertising their, it was their poorly-based decision to withdraw in response to threats from right wingers that angered me.

When has anything in marketing *not* been dubious? I think its the nature of the beast.