Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Buying Power: A Trillion Dollars

And People Still Want To Pretend We Don't Exist

A recently released marketing study of American LGBT consumers, estimates that the buying power of our community in 2012 is currently  $790B billion dollars.

Go figure -- the LGBT community allegedly has almost a trillion dollars in buying power, and yet there are still lots of people who prefer to think that we don’t exist.

Washington, DC based Witeck Communications conducted the study and found that the LGBT community can be fickle about their favorite brands.

In 2011 these 12 brands were in the Top 20 Brand Buzz Ranking - Google, Amazon, Whole Foods, Claritin, HBO, Lowe's, Cheerios, Food Network, M&Ms, Nike, Trader Joe's and Bose.

In 2012, the Top 20 Brand Buzz Ranking does not include any of those companies. This year’s list includes 12 new brands. Android, iPad, Target, Samsung, Aleve, Kindle, Advil, PBS, LG, Starbucks, Comedy Central, and Skype. 

Recent research from Catalyst found that most members of the LGBT community (87%) prefer companies that offer equal benefits for LGBT employees and almost half (47%) prefer brands that create ads tailored to their community. Even if a brand was more expensive, 71% would continue to be loyal if that brand was in favour of LGBT issues.

I hope no one spent a lot of money to study that issue, because that's just common sense. Of course we'll be loyal to a brand if they pay special attention to us, and we will drop them like a hot potato if they piss us off. We expect every retail organization to have a non-discrimination policy, protecting their LGBT employees as well.

Does anyone wonder why retailers are falling all over us to attract our business? The retail organizations that court us are smart, and we're very loyal to those companies that are good to us.

Gay men have been size queens forever. We like big packages, and big wallets, and it sounds like retail stores are making an extra effort to get their hands on our.......big wallets, and I can hardly blame them.

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