Sep 15, 2008 10:17 AM
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Wed Feb 10
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The gays have always been an attractive demographic for advertisers because they're generally affluent, have more disposable income (fewer babies!), and tend to be more reliable early adopters of trends than slobby straights. So all-American brands love to get on the gays' good side. As long as they don't have to directly market to them, because under Man Law that would make them homo by association, and their sales in Texas would absolutely plunge. But times have officially changed, cowboy; Levi's is going straight to the gays with a gay ad campaign on gay TV network Logo with the gay message: Levi's loves gays enough to get dirty at 3 a.m.!
In their new "Unbuttoned" campaign that has the unfortunate side effect of employing Perez Hilton, Levi's is sponsoring the entire 1-3 a.m. programming block on Logo on Sunday mornings. Market research on Logo and a bit of deduction tells us exactly who Levi's is going after at 2 a.m. after a long Saturday night: lonely gay people who live not in cities, but in more isolated outposts of suburbia with fewer opportunities to connect with the gay community in person. And how will Levi's demonstrate its special understanding of this under-served demographic? By giving them shirtless guys and dirty jokes:
The shows will be the first on Logo — a basic-cable channel available in 33 million homes — that will not be edited for language or other content. Some taboos will still apply; among them, no frontal nudity.
This, at last, is equality.
[NYT]
Send an email to Hamilton Nolan, the author of this post, at Hamilton@gawker.com.
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