The Gays, advertising, branding, differences, drinking, liquor, marketing, sexuality...

The Liquor Ad That Only Gays Were Supposed To See

Gays: Here is one of the plainest insights you will ever get into how you are perceived by the liquor industry, and, by extension, by the advertising industry that gets paid to understand consumers such as yourself. Pictured here is an ad for Basil Hayden's whiskey that was placed in "general market" publications. Its tagline reads, "When you walk into a bar, you're on stage." After the jump, the tagline for the version of that same ad that was placed into Gay/ Lesbian publications:

The inescapable conclusion: They believe that only gays are fit for modeling! Outrageous. Or maybe it's something else, now that I think about it. Other possible conclusions in the comments, please.

[via MultiCultClassics]

4:28 PM on Thu Mar 27 2008
By Hamilton Nolan
12,900 views
53 comments

Comments

Sheila at 04:33 PM on 03/27/08
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"for the best of times... Santori times."
MattGaymon at 04:33 PM on 03/27/08
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Bourbon happens to improve my posture.
In Other News... at 04:34 PM on 03/27/08
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It's not TV, it's Bravo.
eXXX at 04:35 PM on 03/27/08
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So for the straights, a reminder. For the gays, an insult. Got it.
In Other News... at 04:35 PM on 03/27/08
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Courage to kiss a straight dude.
In Other News... at 04:36 PM on 03/27/08
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Top shelf, power bottom.
BullfightsOnAcid at 04:36 PM on 03/27/08
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It's a bar, not a Crisco Oil Hump N Bump Orgy.
FormerEnglishMajor at 04:36 PM on 03/27/08
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They ain't lookin' at you, so stop posing.
kingsquiddish at 04:36 PM on 03/27/08
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yes it is a catwalk damnit... how many gays do you know that drink whiskey anyway?
fiveinchtaint at 04:37 PM on 03/27/08
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I think it's saying don't match your shoe buckles, belt buckles and bottle buckles. That's tacky.
kingsquiddish at 04:37 PM on 03/27/08
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appletini anyone?
Reggie Cameron at 04:37 PM on 03/27/08
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Gays comprise such a minor segment of Bourbon drinkers it's almost undetectable. Ad dollars for Vodka are bettter spent on gays since over 70 percent of vodka drinkers happen to be either women or fey.
SixThirty at 04:37 PM on 03/27/08
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Why the reminder to the straights that they're on display, but the admonishment ot the gays to stop acting as if we're on display? Shouldn't it be the other way around? The gays are MUCH more apt to judge you with their friends in a bar than the straights...
awhatsname at 04:37 PM on 03/27/08
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Red font improves words that suggest people-watching.
ThighHigh at 04:38 PM on 03/27/08
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Drink this, since you lost your six-pack over the winter.
BullfightsOnAcid at 04:38 PM on 03/27/08
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When you walk into a bar, grope your package...with class.
hypocriteoath at 04:38 PM on 03/27/08
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When you walk into a bar, play it off like nothing happened. Good Luck.
Gayyker at 04:38 PM on 03/27/08
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Straights: Take it up a notch
Gheys: Tone it down a bit
kingsquiddish at 04:38 PM on 03/27/08
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Hamilton Nolan reporting live from the urinal at the Bear pit
if_i_only_had_a_heart at 04:40 PM on 03/27/08
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geigh -- it's what's for dinner
KarenUhOh at 04:41 PM on 03/27/08
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The ad for my drink of choice: "What are you bitching about? It was $6.99. Get up before you have an accident."
FracturedAcetabulum at 04:41 PM on 03/27/08
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Multi-function stopper/glass butt plug.
La Cieca at 04:42 PM on 03/27/08
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"S&M" don't mean "standing and modeling," Mary!
creamsissle at 04:42 PM on 03/27/08
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That's some fancy accessorizing for a bottle of Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey.
Clarence Rosario at 04:43 PM on 03/27/08
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Targeting the uber-niche Right Said Fred segment?
dweeb at 04:43 PM on 03/27/08
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Clearly, personalized cock rings know no one orientation.
MattGaymon at 04:45 PM on 03/27/08
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@Gayyker: Foreal, they could have said "Seriously ladies, you sound like donkeys - stop braying" and they would not have offended me a bit!
Lonesome_George at 04:45 PM on 03/27/08
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This bourbon makes the straights gayer and the gays straighter! Everybody wins!
karion at 04:50 PM on 03/27/08
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A Basil Hayden Perfect Martini is the cure for what ails you.
miss_msry at 04:55 PM on 03/27/08
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@Reggie Cameron:
Or alcoholics. Now pass that bottle.
kingsquiddish at 04:56 PM on 03/27/08
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It's totally a gay bourbon... look how well it accessorizes!
Cheap Shot at 05:00 PM on 03/27/08
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Can you believe there are people getting paid to tap into gay marketing research? They realized gays spend a trillion dollars and now they want in.
semiserious at 05:01 PM on 03/27/08
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Snatch some whisky, not a trophy Miss Thing.
Mike_Jahn at 05:04 PM on 03/27/08
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May I make a contribution to oral history before it's totally forgotten? Since it doesn't turn up on Google, I may be the last repository of this knowledge. What we know as the Long Island Ice Tea began its life as the Fire Island Ice Tea. It was created at Fire Island Pines at the Blue Whale in the 1970s and served during tea dance. AFter a short period of time mainland kids discovered that it was a damned fine date rape concoction and began turning up, not exactly welcome, at the tea dance. And they began falling into the harbor and blocking the ferry, which was driven by a friend of mine at the time. I also was around in those days, idly and without compensation helping deliver the Sunday Times to Calvin Klein and Tommy Tune. Amazingly, ferry captains and their dissolute friends like the drink too. Anyway, the Pines bartenders stopped serving it, and the drink migrated across the Bay and was picked up by mainland LI bartenders, who renamed it to eliminate the gay connection. Over the past few years some gay drink mixers have been doing a variant of the Long Island Ice Tea and calling it the Fire Island Ice Tea. No, Mary, not quite. Other way around.

Just thought I'd add that. We have a responsibility to history. We're not memoirists.
Hez at 05:06 PM on 03/27/08
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Neal Boulton just ordered a crate. I think he thought it was Hayden Christensen bourbon.
Randall Tex Cobb at 05:07 PM on 03/27/08
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@Lonesome_George: Except the ladies.
Hamud Ibn Hamud at 05:11 PM on 03/27/08
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I'm trying to figure out the sort of life a person would need to lead in order to experience a heightened sense of moment simply by walking into a bar.

I imagine that a person so readily in awe of the mundane would have an even tougher time walking into a bank, or a doctor's office, or any other place where a drink wasn't reliably available to steady his nerves.
BeRightBack at 05:12 PM on 03/27/08
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@Mike_Jahn: That's fascinating! I'd never heard that.

I wonder if there's a similar story behind Long Island Iced Teabagging?
iplaudius at 05:15 PM on 03/27/08
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@Mike_Jahn: Wow. I didn’t realize that the principles of heterosexual appropriation (of gay-anointed real estate, fashion, music, etc.) extended to beverages!
iplaudius at 05:17 PM on 03/27/08
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@Hamud: Or, in order to require a heightened sense of moment? In which case, he brings the whiskey in a flask and does a shot before he walks in?
traydon_barter at 05:27 PM on 03/27/08
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Got Gay...milk?
dweeb at 05:27 PM on 03/27/08
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@Mike_Jahn: Congratulations on also birthing the expression, "delivering the Sunday Times."
mitchel_stevens at 05:31 PM on 03/27/08
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@Lonesome_George:
wait, it's bottled by John McCain's god penis?
noiseyneighbor at 05:33 PM on 03/27/08
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Is that bottle wearing assless chaps?
bodegacat at 05:43 PM on 03/27/08
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@Mike_Jahn: You could start the gay Wikipedia with that entry.
heroinandpeeps at 05:59 PM on 03/27/08
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It must be awfully challenging to convince the gay barels of Scotch to age.
mowglicub at 06:09 PM on 03/27/08
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Whiskey in the front lick him in the rear.
AndIAmTellingYou at 06:20 PM on 03/27/08
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They should've just gone with "Bitch, puh-leez..."
MeaniePants at 06:43 PM on 03/27/08
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@AndIAmTellingYou: Hee hee! And by the way, we gays love the Basil Hayden because it accessorizes (the belt around its lovely slip dress?)
if_i_only_had_a_heart at 07:06 PM on 03/27/08
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heh what kind of life -- the life of someone under 30, lonely, lost, and recently arrived in some bigger town from some smaller one

i'm just saying
AndSheSaid at 07:10 PM on 03/27/08
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@AndIAmTellingYou: "Tranny hot mess all up in my stuff" would have worked as well.
onebadclam at 09:44 PM on 03/27/08
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So just where am I supposed to walk my cat, then?
nela at 09:22 PM on 03/28/08
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they could have also gone with "how you doin?"

because the bottle is totally flaming. i love it though.