Lesbian and gay travelers are not looking to be marketed to - they want to experience respect and understanding as equal consumers of companies products and services. What does that mean to marketers? Talk with gay consumers, not at them.
Ian Johnson, Out Now
June 24, 2009
Topics: Gay and lesbian travel. Lesbian and gay tourism. Gay marketing. Out Now. VisitSweden. LGBT Travel. GLBT tourism and gay travel. Lesbian travellers. Gay and lesbian advertising and lesbian and gay marketing. Stockholm In Full Glory. Sweden. Out Now UK gay marketing campaign for Stockholm.
Sweden is one of those places you really have to visit to properly understand its people.
Long famed throughout the world for attributes of tolerance and respect for differences, there is a far more complex reality at play when you get to know many Swedes.
One city where you are well placed to do precisely that is Stockholm.
Out Now recently launched VisitSweden's largest gay marketing campaign to date in the UK market.
Called 'Stockholm In Full Glory' the campaign was managed by the UK Marketing Manager for VisitSweden, Linda Ericson - ably assisted by her fabulous colleague Christina Guggenberger of Stockholm Visitors Board.The campaign draws upon the inspiration of Magnus Lindbergh of VisitSweden New York office and also uses the statue photography of Landeros Studios.
Talk With Consumers, Not At Them
Out Now visited Stockholm in January as a guest of the Stockholm Visitors Board and Visit Sweden.
In working with any new client - it is important to assess how much of the 'Gay Marketing 101' basics they already know, and how much hand holding is needed.
In the case of VisitSweden and Stockholm Visitors Board, it was clear that both organizations were well aware of the valuable importance of the lesbian and gay travel market to their overall marketing strategies. Both Stockholm and Visit Sweden already included gay microsites on their main web sites.
What we needed to do was decide what was it about Stockholm - beyond the stereotypes of ABBA and Volvo cars - that could appeal to any traveler, including gays and lesbians.
The Four Themes of Stockholm
On my return in January to cold, wet London it was clear to me what things had made an impact on me during my just-completed first trip.
Water - Stockholm is a place that is surrounded by the stuff. It is everywhere. But more than that, it is profoundly beautiful - and I believe actually helps explain the serene nature that many Swedes seem to carry around with them during their everyday lives.
Beauty - lives just about every place in Stockholm. The architecture, the archipelago, the clean lines of style and elegance that slice through the city. Beauty simply envelops the visitor to Stockholm.
Design - Many of the world's leading designs originate in Sweden. Stockholm flies the flag for great Swedish design extremely well. From clothing to architecture to furniture and more. Great design leads the way for Swedish culture.
Legends - Ask anyone to name some Swedish legends and you will probably be surprised. After the mandatory ABBA response, we discover a wealth of legends like Greta Garbo, Bjorn Borg, Ingmar Bergman and more. Even what I believe is quite possibly the most spectacular museum in the world - The Vasa Museum in Stockholm - is built right around the greatest Swedish legend of all, the massive 17th century ship The Vasa.
Start a ConversationWhat impressed me most about Stockholm was how little I knew of what the city is really like, before I visited.
All those elements - beauty, water, design and legends - were almost completely unknown to me as being critically important parts of what makes up the fabric of Stockholm as a unique European destination.
Out Now's challenge was to create a strategy for starting a conversation with lesbian and gay travelers themselves about why Stockholm belongs on their travel shopping lists.
We used a range of techniques.
First, we visited Stockholm and filmed local Stockholm gay guys sending an invitation to their UK counterparts to visit.
Video: The various themes are available online for viewing at the YouTube channel for VisitSwedenUK.
Here is the Out Now video for Legends.
The Legends and Beauty theme videos also include some nice gay-welcoming messaging from two of the people we spoke with. Natural and authentic - and very, very appealing for other gay people to hear so naturally expressed about a potential tourism destination.
These videos are then linked to an online promotion where people visit to enter to win a free trip to Stockholm.
That is motivated by winning a free trip of course, but it was also a good opportunity for Out Now to deliver some real-time market analysis for our client, so we recommended that the selection of the favourite video of the four should be an element to enter. Brand promotion tied-in with useful market research insight. A nice and efficient approach. (How Swedish in design!)
The marketing package was then supported with print advertising in two leading UK gay media titles, Beige Travel and GT.
This weekend, the final element of the Stockholm UK gay marketing promotion for 2009 is delivered - with a gay media FAM trip to Stockholm by journalists from leading UK gay media products and websites.All in all, this has been a campaign for which Out Now feels a great deal of pride. And one which the client thinks is "quite good".
"Stockholm offers a unique and exceptional experience and we want the gay community to feel especially welcome" says Linda Ericson at VisitSweden. "This campaign provides a good platform to get our message out there in a creative way, and let people know what makes Stockholm so special."
One More Thing
Stockholm has just become the second GayComfort accredited Preferred Partner destination in the GayComfort program.
More on that later, but suffice to say that Christina Guggenberger and her colleagues at Stockholm Visitors Board know a thing or two about lesbian and gay travel marketing.
It is never enough to just 'talk the talk' - and tick a box claiming "we are gay-friendly".
Gay and lesbian consumers are far more sophisticated than that.
They expect their suppliers to 'walk the walk' - by delivering truly gay-comfortable, welcoming accommodation and attractions when they travel.
Which is precisely what GayComfort does for the fine hotels and attractions of the Stockholm Gay Network.
The 'Stockholm In Full Glory' campaign continues.
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If you would like Out Now to help you take your marketing to the leading-edge of sales results, please do get in touch.
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AdWeek recently referred to one of Out Now's gay advertising campaigns as "the year's most talked about tourism ads." Out Now Consulting is a leading global gay marketing specialist agency, founded in 1992. Clients include Barclays, IBM, Toyota, Citibank, German National Tourist Office, Visit Britain, Lufthansa and Time Inc. Magazines. Out Now recently won the "Outstanding Interactive" category in New York at the 'Images in Advertising' awards for an online campaign for their client Lufthansa.
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To learn how to get lesbian and gay marketing strategy right -- rely on gay marketing expert strategic advice from Out Now -- the leading experienced global strategic gay marketing, research and communications agency.
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