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SIX RAINBOW COLOURS form the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) flag – not a celebration of being gay, but born of the belief of a right to exist without persecution. Increasingly, opportunists in all consumer sectors – including alcohol – have adopted the rainbow, designed to unify and show support, on branding and products. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed.

The vodka category has not always had an easy relationship with the LGBT community (but more on that later) and the more cynical observer is starting to ask more of marketers due to the rise of online and the culture of acceptance in developed markets. If vodka companies want to tap into the US$3.7trn global LGBT consumer spend, aka the pink/rainbow pound, they need to take a smarter approach than simply adding a rainbow flag to a label.

According to Community Marketing & Insights’ ninth LGBT Community Survey, only 57% of gay men in the US had positive sentiment towards the rainbow in marketing. It’s slightly more accepted by lesbians, with 68% having a positive sentiment.

RAINBOW POWER

“Marketers need to think long and hard before slapping a rainbow on their product or advertising if they think they are going to appeal to the LGBT community just because of that,” says Dave Karraker, vice-president of engagement & advocacy at Campari America.

“The LGBT consumer is very savvy and smart. They can see when someone is simply pandering versus when a brand has a long-standing history of supporting their community or the brand is making a real effort to be a partner to this important group. Of course, having a charitable component to your marketing, such as Skyy vodka had with marriage equality, helps demonstrate your dedication and support.”

Paul Thompson, founder of an asset management business serving the LGBT consumer sector, LGBT Capital, says: “I think how the rainbow is used is important. Just sticking it on a product is not good enough anymore. Plastering a rainbow on a product and talking down to people is not going to help. We have our own needs.”

On a recent trip to London, Thompson was pleased to see one out of the six advertisements on his tube ride was of two men. “And,” he remarks, “it didn’t say ‘LGBT’.” “I think that was effective advertising.”

Increasingly, marketers will struggle to advertise to this group because of the development of online dating, apps and a younger, more demanding millennial consumer.

“You see a lot of venues closing down due to the development of online products,” LGBT Capital’s Thompson says. “In the past, gay men used to go to these venues to meet. Now people meet online. In places such as London, people don’t feel the need to go to a gay bar. In developed markets, two men can go into a normal nightclub, dance together and not feel like they will be stabbed or something.”

TARGET AUDIENCE

Historically, brands would advertise in a gay publication to reach its target audience but there was a very real fear for some that they would be tarred by the rainbow brush and be labelled a ‘gay brand’ by its non-gay audience. “What I am seeing is that this is starting to change,” Thompson says. “A lot of gay consumers are not going to gay venues or receiving information in the same way – so how do you target them?”

When Absolut launched in 1979, the LGBT community was still very marginalised by mainstream society, according to Gaia Gilardini, global communications director for Absolut.

“As acceptance of the LGBT community has progressed, some brands may feel there is less risk of alienating mainstream consumers when appealing to the LGBT audience,” says Gilardini.

Pernod’s relationship with the community started almost instantly when it began advertising in LGBT-targeted magazines in the 80s – one of only a handful of large companies to do so. Fast-forward almost 30 years to 2008 and the Absolut brand got to collaborate with Gilbert Baker, the creator of the rainbow flag, to create its US limited-edition colours bottle. “Our aim wasn’t to specifically target the LGBT community, but rather celebrate it with a bottle that would appeal to anyone who values an open world where people are free to be their true selves. I can’t speak for other brands, but Absolut wants all types of people to connect with each other, and this is just one of the ways that we demonstrate this,” says Gilardini.

Stoli was a little later to tap into this community, “In the early 90s [we] created an authentic account-level marketing initiative, which advanced Stoli’s active support for LGBT individuals and organisations,” says Patrik Gallineaux, Stoli LGBT ambassador. And today? “We work with and foster close relationships with LGBT organisations around the world, and create programmes that truly make an impact for the community at large.

“Ultimately, Stoli believes we have a responsibility to make a difference. Working towards a world of complete inclusivity is at the heart of everything we do.”

But Stoli’s relationship with the LGBT community hasn’t always been amicable. In response to Russian president Vladimir Putin banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” in 2013, and the ensuing furore around the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games and whether LGBT athletes would be shunned, international protests and vodka boycotts calling for bars to Dump Russian Vodka erupted. Stoli was one of the ‘Russian’ brands that was specifically targeted during this time.

Then and since, Stoli’s Luxembourg-based owner SPI Group has been keen to state that it is in no way affiliated with the Russian government and the brand has not been owned by a Russian company since 1997. The Stolichnaya vodka made in Russia for the local market is owned by a state-controlled entity.

“During the boycotts, it was imperative to let the LGBT community know that Stoli shared the same desire for justice and equality,” Gallineaux says. “We were and continue to stand proud and strong with the LGBT community and coming out of the boycotts Stoli’s relationship with the LGBT community became even stronger. The boycott has been an incredible opportunity for education and the opportunity to have new dialogues, to forge new relationships and to unite the brand and community more closely.”

This is something Tim Parkinson, senior vice-president for content, premium core Diageo brands, is also trying to push. “Smirnoff has had a close relationship with the LGBT community for nearly two decades and we continue to spread our inclusivity message to a wider audience in different ways,” he says.

Diageo recently launched its We’re Open campaign in the UK. Parkinson says it sought to support the LGBT community and question traditional notions of gender and sexuality. Lines such as ‘Homosexual, heterosexual, who-gives-a-sexual. We’re open’ dominated billboards around the country and the brand was present at Pride parades nationwide.

For Parkinson, Diageo must follow words with actions. This year it hosted one of the first same-sex weddings at Electric Daisy Carnival, an electronic dance music festival taking place in Vegas in June, becoming the first brand to live-stream a legal wedding via Facebook. “We did this to show how #lovewins still wins a year after the US Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality,” Parkinson says.

This side of the pond, Diageo also launched the Smirnoff Love Wins Collection – a limited-edition collaboration of bottles that make up the colours of the rainbow by Smirnoff and Dawn O’Porter’s fashion brand, BOB. “For every bottle sold, Smirnoff will make a donation to LGBT charity, R U Coming Out, which aims to inspire and support people to be themselves.”

SPENDING POWER

Companies will want to strike the right balance because critics are rife and there is that $US3.7 trn global spend at stake – piss off this community at your peril, as Stoli found.

“You can’t ignore that type of spending power,” Campari’s Karraker says. “Add to it that the LGBT community is generally more brand-loyal than the general populace and you can see why this is a very important group.”

LGBT Capital’s Thompson says: “I think if there is any cynicism [about rainbow marketing] it is because, like any other market, you are talking to a group of people that has specific needs. I don’t see the LGBT market as being one market. I see the male market as very different to the female market, so the way you would approach them would and should be different.”

When it comes to drinks and entertainment venues, Thompson says most marketing is targeted at the former group. “There needs to be more understanding about it and the numbers are very important.

“In China, for example, there are 70-85m LGBT people,” Thompson says. “They are at a different stage of their development than developed markets, such as the UK, and there will be significantly more spend in this community.

“Generally, there are bigger and bigger opportunities to target the LGBT market,” Thompson adds. “The more open the market is the more there is to target. There’s £100bn spend in the UK alone.”

It’s a very big market, but it’s a changing one. “There is a section of the LGBT community that is changing,” Thompson says. Increasingly, couples in developed markets are having families and the rise of online is altering the way the $3.7trn is spent. Less developed markets should also be observed closely, Thompson says, because, although they are at an early stage of their journey, this will probably be accelerated by online influences and an arguably more accepting reception in larger cities.

EMBRACING THE COMMUNITY

Absolut’s Gilardini says the world is generally becoming a more accepting place – one of the reasons many brands now are willing to openly embrace the LGBT community. “As the trend of acceptance becomes even more commonplace, I expect there to be a seamless integration in how brands appeal to LGBT consumers with their marketing efforts. This manifests itself not as ‘LGBT-targeted ads’ per se, but campaigns that simply have a diverse group of people in them, ranging in sex, ethnicity, gender, and even age. Our most recent campaign has a variety of spots telling the stories of a range of people. ”

Thompson says marketers are not as concerned as they once might have been about their campaigns being seen as ‘gay advertisements’. “It is ‘cool’ to be gay now.”

Any marketer wanting to target that massive global LGBT spend has his or her work cut out. There is no-one-size-fits-all answer for the modern consumer and they will, in turn, demand more understanding and creativity and a move away from the rainbow blanket approach.