(Top row, L-R): Kimberlee Williams, Ben Finzel, Andy Bagnall
(Bottom row, L-R): Bob Witeck, Matt Skallerud
With more than $712 billion in purchasing power, the LGBT community has become one of the most coveted customer segments in the United States.
But it takes more than waving a rainbow flag to get gay consumers' attention—and loyalty. That's why Fortune 500 companies have turned to top-notch public relations and marketing firms that are recognized experts in reaching LGBT consumers.
BIZ decided to find out who the executives are behind some of these top firms, asking them about their companies and their own experiences in LGBT public relations. This week, we also asked their advice on what common mistakes companies make in their drive to get a share of the "pink dollar." Our marketing experts are:
- Andy Bagnall is a vice president at Prime Access, a multicultural advertising agency in New York.
- Ben Finzel is a senior vice president at the P.R. firm Fleishman-Hillard, and founding global co-chair of Fleishman-Hillard Out Front, the firm's LGBT practice.
- Matt Skallerud is president of Pink Banana Media, which helps companies market to LGBT consumers using social networking.
- Kimberlee Williams is co-owner and marketing director of FEMWORKS, LLC, a New Jersey company that specializes in multicultural marketing within the LGBT community.
- Bob Witeck is CEO and co-founder of Witeck-Combs Communications, one of the first P.R. and marketing firms to specialize in the LGBT market.
This is Part 1 of our three-part series exploring LGBT marketing and public relations and the relationship between LGBT consumers and corporate America. You can read Part 2 here.
Tell us a little about yourself and your company.
Andy Bagnall: My name is Andy Bagnall, and I'm a vice president and account director at Prime Access. Prime Access is a full-service multicultural advertising agency in New York that specializes in reaching African-American, Hispanic and LGBT consumers. In the more than 18 years we've been in the LGBT market, we've worked with big brands and corporations like Merck & Co., Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Chase, Volvo, HBO, AT&T and American Express. I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but currently call Park Slope, Brooklyn home.
Ben Finzel: I am a native Washingtonian. I went to high school and college in Texas, but I moved back to D.C. right after graduation. After spending almost six years on the Hill, I got into public relations. Other than a stint as a presidential appointee at the end of the 1990s, I've been in P.R. ever since.
Matt Skallerud: I started out in May 1995 with GayWired.com. We didn't know where it would all go, but things really began to take off early on as the Internet took the world by storm. We took what worked for the guys in GayWired.com and created a women's version, LesbiaNation.com. Soon after, we did the same for the niche of gay travel, gay sports and other "niche within the niche" submarkets within the gay and lesbian community.
I've since sold this company and now spend my time focused on just helping advertisers reach the gay and lesbian community online, working with a wide variety of Web sites and not just the ones I had owned. The latest Web 2.0 and social networking marketing opportunities are of the most interest to advertisers right now, so I spend a lot of time helping advertisers strategize and reach this market using blogs, Facebook and more.
Kimberlee Williams: FEMWORKS LLC is a full-service, boutique marketing agency and photography studio. We offer a range of services, including public relations, Web development, graphic design and photography. We also specialize in multicultural and LGBT marketing and photography. I am co-owner and director of marketing. I am also a married lesbian and woman of color. FEMWORKS is located in Newark, New Jersey.
Bob Witeck: Wes Combs and I co-founded our company 15 years ago—both coming from corporate America but also active volunteers and donors in the LGBT community. We both had a passion for social change, and a desire to create a lasting bridge between business and LGBT people. We saw the potential and wanted to work with corporate leaders and progressive causes that saw common ground.
We also have dedicated a good deal of our mission to related issues of health care and disability too, including work on HIV/AIDS projects and also, surprisingly, to representing Christopher and Dana Reeve for nearly nine years. We managed Chris' projects and media outreach in his leadership as a disability activist and champion for medical research.
How did you get into LGBT P.R. or marketing?
Andy Bagnall: I started out my career in LGBT marketing in the non-profit sector. I've always been passionate about HIV/AIDS and gay men's health. I also knew that I wanted my professional life to integrate with my personal life as a gay man. My first job provided me with both. I was program manager at the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin where I implemented a statewide HIV prevention social marketing program targeting gay men. Then the beacon that is New York City called to me and I worked at POZ magazine as director of the POZ Life Expo Tour, developing and marketing a 10-city HIV consumer health fair tour. From there, I was recruited to Prime Access to work on marketing an HIV medication for Merck. At Prime Access, I've been able to grow my category experience to include pharmaceutical, automotive, entertainment, travel and financial services.
Ben Finzel: I got into PR thanks to a colleague whom I had interned for on the Hill who was then at a P.R. firm. He offered me my first job in P.R. at another agency in the mid '90s, and I started at Fleishman-Hillard in 2000.
When I learned in 2002 that we were considering developing a gay and lesbian communications program, I was one of a group of people who volunteered to help develop it. Soon thereafter, I was appointed one of the co-chairs of the effort and led the launch of the practice—which is called FH Out Front—in 2004. We launched the Out Front Blog (outfrontblog.com) in 2006.
Matt Skallerud: It was just a natural fit with GayWired.com. We could have easily just been another gay Web site run from the guest room of our home, but we decided early on we wanted to be more than that, and to take the lead with both Web concepts and technology and how those applied to the early adopter status of the gay and lesbian community worldwide. We've always been good at online marketing (search engine optimization, cross-promotional links, etc.) so we began going out to the gay and lesbian community, through pride festivals and other consumer events, as well as through business networking opportunities, which was where the majority of our future advertisers were. We learned what would work for us and we helped apply that to other companies as well, both online and in the "real world."
Kimberlee Williams: As students of marketing and photography, Tamara Fleming, my business partner, and I saw that the LGBT community was tremendously under served. Beyond that, we realized that as people of color we were in a unique segment of the LGBT market that was routinely marginalized and neglected by the emerging LGBT marketing campaigns. Through extensive research, we were able to identify the intense profit potential of our community and chose to teach corporations how to effectively reach our community and build profitable relationships.
Bob Witeck: Our first two clients gave us a big push. We were retained by American Airlines and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation in 1994 to help promote National Coming Out Day. With these two inaugural clients, it was clear that our mission would be to be a bridge between our community and corporate America. At that time, very few professional marketers and communicators were committed to this work, and as we start our 16th year, we clearly were among the pioneers.
What are the most common missteps you see companies make—other than your clients!— in regard to their LGBT employees or customers, and what do you wish you could tell them?
Andy Bagnall: A pet peeve of mine is when companies clearly use an ad intended for a straight audience in their advertising to the LGBT market (it happens more than you think). This goes against advertising and marketing 101 and the importance of customer insight and relevance in developing marketing communications. It also sends the wrong message to savvy LGBT consumers. How serious are you about the market if you are using the heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman to sell your product? Related to this is when companies use an ad that features two sisters or two straight "girlfriends" as their lesbian-targeted ad. No one is fooled.
Ben Finzel: I think one of the most obvious mistakes I see in communications is language. Companies that mean well but don't quite get it will often talk about our "sexual preference" or make references to our "lifestyle" in their outreach. Using those kinds of loaded code words in that way is a dead giveaway that you don't get us and likely are more focused on trying to make money from us than engaging honestly with us as equal, and valued, members of society. You've got to know how to engage us if you want to be successful.
Another mistake is assuming that we're all the same and that one message will reach the black lesbian couples in the suburbs, the Hispanic gay men in the city and the white transgender kids in the small towns. Just as with other communities, we are made up of many different groups, and different messages must be employed to reach us. I could go on, but instead I'll suggest that your readers check out our "How-To" blog post on avoiding common outreach mistakes on the Out Front Blog. We developed a "Top 10" list that should be of interest to your readers.
Matt Skallerud: As of now, the most common misstep seems to be in marketing. Some companies get it and realize that during a downturn in the economy, they have to roll up their sleeves and really push the boundaries in terms of finding the most economically efficient means of reaching their potential client base. In today's market, that means online marketing more than ever before, and the greatest opportunities to do outreach and to really stand out lie in the ever-growing social networking communities, as well as the latest Web 2.0 entertainment spaces including YouTube and blogs.
Smart companies realize they get their greatest "bang for their buck" when they successfully master this space, but you'll hear other companies and their marketing managers lamenting the downturn and their marketing budget cuts and just focusing on some tried and true bare-minimum marketing to just get by. I believe that the smarter companies that are leveraging some of the latest marketing techniques in these new online spaces (such as the over 50,000,000 U.S. eyeballs that spent a greater portion of their time than ever before on Facebook last month) will find this an excellent opportunity to leapfrog their competitors who are slow to embrace this space.
Kimberlee Williams: The most common mistake I see companies making is not sustaining their relationships with LGBT employees and customers. Companies should see the LGBT public as a primary audience. We are key opinion leaders in various aspects of business, lifestyle and culture. It's important for companies not to exclusively limit their involvement to stereotypically LGBT events. Deciding to only target LGBT consumers during Gay Pride month is as shortsighted as only targeting African Americans during Black History month.
Bob Witeck: First, I would say, "avoid exceptionalism." That's a mantra with me, to remind corporations that LGBT employees and customers do not wish to be handled, managed or treated differently. Don't categorize or label groups in ways that continue to marginalize. We are not smarter, faster, richer than anyone else, but we are keen to be spoken to with honesty and respect. We're neither martyrs nor victims, but instead your families, neighbors, friends and co-workers, and we hope you get to understand and appreciate us as individuals.
