Consumer Response to Gay and Lesbian Imagery: How Product Type and Stereotypes Affect Consumers’ Perceptions

Gay and lesbian consumers increasingly are recognized as a lucrative target market. Advertisements more frequently incorporate images of gay and lesbian people; however, more research is needed to understand mainstream (heterosexual) consumer response to these advertisements.

Consumer Response to Gay and Lesbian Imagery: How Product Type and Stereotypes Affect Consumers' Perceptions

Kathrynn Pounders

University of Texas at Austin

Amanda Mabry-Flynn

University of Illinois

MANAGEMENT SLANT

  • Brands increasingly recognize that gays and lesbians are a lucrative market that should be advertised to beyond niche channels.
  • Product type affects consumer reactions to advertisements featuring gays and lesbians in the form of consumer attitude toward the advertisement and intention to spread positive word of mouth.
  • There are primarily positive outcomes when the product featured in the advertisement is perceived as consistent with the stereotype of the sexual orientation depicted...

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands