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Ref No:14847

Vodka marketing and the gay consumer from the 1980s onwards

Introduction

Vodka marketing and the gay consumer, In the 21^st century, alcohol is among the most intensely advertised product on the planet and it is commonly advertised on different social media sites. Social media platforms provide a productive bi-directional promotion platform for alcohol companies, as brands could advertise to explicit target groups and talk to their buyers directly. Social media hence increases the approachability of alcohol companies target groups such as the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community and enables brands to promote their products in a new, interactive and effective way.

During the 19^th and 20^th century, alcohol brands used somewhat different marketing strategies to advertise their products, in comparison to marketing strategies they use nowadays. Alcohol brand such as Absolut, a Swedish vodka company owned by Pernod Richard has introduced a campaign that celebrates 30 years of the brand’s accomplishments to satisfy the needs of the American buyers who are bisexual, transgender and gay, a market currently referred to as the LGBT community.

Starting point came when advertisements were published in the year 1981 by the alcohol brand Absolut in two different magazines called After Dark and The Advocate who was read by the gay men. This type of target marketing was very strange three decades ago when nearly each and every main mainstay brand isolated themselves from the market because of a paranoid fear of estranging the bigger, standard market. The Absolut vodka brand product ads in the year 1992 were publicised on different charity function, events and on a number of the Logo cable channels (CISION PR Newswire 2020).

The Smirnoff vodka brand uses a different approach when it comes to advertising its alcohol products to the LGBT community. For example, for their 10 year anniversary, the brand will give $1 dollar per bottle made to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), American’s biggest association working for transgender, gay, queer, bisexual and lesbian equality. In the year 1992, with the help of this campaign, the Smirnoff brand was able to donate $260,000 dollars to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) association in just two days (Blakemore 2019).

During this research, the researcher evaluates how alcohol brands such as Smirnoff and Absolut tends to target the LGBT community by utilising different marketing strategies that will be thoroughly discussed during this dissertation.

The main research aims

This research aims to provide critical analysis of the connection between the first advertisement of Absolut and Smirnoff to the fashion crowd like using artists such as: Haring and Warhol and later during the 1990s began into more extensive gay targeting for their advertising, positions in the gay media and the press and later a setting for a cause-established activity based around the AIDS breakout (CISION PR Newswire 2020). Further, it is understood to be the origination for the LGBT community and marketing platforms having incited different contenders to take a comparable position, and different advertisers to discover the benefit of their strategy.

The main research question

How the early advertising of vodka companies developed and assisted to build a sophisticated connection between the gay community and marketing industry from the years the 1980s till the 1990s.

Research objectives

• Determine how and when the vodka business moved towards minority community marketing dependent on sexuality.
• Determine how and when vodka businesses started targeting the gay community.
• Examine the advertising techniques applied by vodka labels, explicitly Smirnoff and Absolut that were provoked or copied by other alcohol companies that want to target the gay community.
• Examine the extent to which gay drinking behaviour was explored by Smirnoff and Absolut brands during the 1980s and 1990s.
• Evaluate the level to which alcohol companies understood and fulfilled the gay buyer needs.
• Evaluate the extent to which Smirnoff and Absolut advertising incited a positive impact such as:
• In activism for gay rights.
• Monetarily for LGBTQ and causes beginning with AIDS.
• Ending with assistance for pride causes.

Literature Review

LGBT Rights

Individuals around the globe face inequality and brutality and every now and then torment, even execution due to who they like, the way they look, or what their gender identity is. Gender identity and sexual orientation are important parts of themselves and ought to never result in abuse or discrimination. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersexual (LGBTI) supporters have conquered huge difficulties risks to their very own wellbeing to get out maltreatment of the human privileges of LGBTI individuals and enforce changes to the legislations that oppress them.

From the presentation of the idea of Pride and worldwide acknowledgement days like the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (otherwise called IDAHOTB), LGBTI individuals are developing partnerships and encouraging pride in who they are around the world. The aggregate efforts of activist associations around the globe have paid genuine dividends. Nowadays, more than 43 nations perceive homophobic violations as a sort of hate crime and on May 2019, more than 27 nations have made same-gender marriage valid and legal. Countries such as: Uruguay, Malta, Canada, Ireland, Argentina and South Africa. Some of the most important milestones of LGBTQ Rights are (Kirchick 2019):

• In the year 1924 – The Society for Human Rights was established by Henry Gerber who lived in Chicago. It was the first-ever reported gay rights association.
• In the year 1950 – The Mattachine Society was established by an activist called Harry Hay and was the initial sustained gay rights associations that worked for LGBT individuals living in the United States. The association focused on social acknowledgement and other support for LGBT people.
• In the year 1952 -The American Psychiatric Association’s symptomatic manual lists homosexuality as a sociopathic identity disorder or disruption.
• In the year 1953 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an official request that prohibits gay LGBT individual from working for the central government because he thinks it can be a security risk (History.Com Editors 2020).
• In the year 1955 – The first recognized lesbian rights association in the United States establishes in San Francisco by Daughters of Bilitis (DOB). They host special social events against dreading police assaults, threats of brutality and discrimination in clubs and bars.
• In the year 1961 – Illinois turns into the initial state to decriminalize homosexuality by revoking their homosexuality laws.
• In the year 1982 – Wisconsin becomes the first-ever state to ban decimation dependent on an individual’s gender.
• In the year 1983 – Lambda Legal successes People v. West 12 Tenants Corporation, the first HIV/AIDS discrimination case. Neighbours tried to expel Dr. Joseph Sonnabend from the structure since he was trying to treat HIV-positive patients (Goose 2013).

Some of the reasons as to why LGBT Rights are important for the well-being of individuals who are living in a society are:

• Everybody ought to be able to feel glad for what their identity is and who they love. Each and every individual has the ethical right to express themselves without any hesitation. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which embark on the rights an individual is eligible or competent for) protects everybody’s right to express themselves.
• Stopping homophobia and transphobia will help to save lives. Anti-LGBTI discrimination puts LGBTI distinguishing individuals at an increased risk of mental and physical harm. Everybody has the freedom to live freely and safely……………………………….continued