Zero - Spanish Gay Mag To Close

Traditional LGBT print media continues to struggle. Latest casualty? Zero magazine in Spain.


Ian Johnson, Out Now
November 25, 2009

Topics: Lesbian and gay media. Gay communications. Lesbian and gay media publishing. Gay media market. Gay and lesbian marketing. Web 2.0 and traditional media. Zero magazine. Spanish gay and lesbian market.

The traditional bastion of gay market media - print magazines - continues to show signs of decline, with news today that the next issue of Spain's leading gay print media product will be the last.

Zero magazine - which has for the past 12 years been published in glossy print for Spain's gay market - had a track record of quality and interviews with some of that country's leading political and media figures.

Now it has been announced that the next issue will be its last.

The holding company behind the magazine has struggled to cope with the effects of the current worldwide recession - with advertising revenues reportedly down by more than a half since the start of 2009.

Not the last

GayMarketNews.com believes that Zero will unfortunately not be the last traditional gay and lesbian media market print magazine to struggle and even fail.

According to Ian Johnson, CEO of Out Now - a leading global lesbian and gay marketing agency - the closure of Zero magazine in Spain's gay and lesbian media market is part of a wider industry trend.

"This is not a phenomenon particular to gay and lesbian media," Johnson said. "Many print products in the general media market are finding their revenues under attack from the combined effects of the recession and the migration of readers to online media product. But it is hitting particularly hard in the gay market as many gays and lesbians no longer feel so strongly 'personally connected' to the need for a gay and lesbian community print media product. In some ways this is a byproduct of an improving acceptance of gays and lesbians in many parts of the world."

The closure of Zero gay magazine in Spain's media market follows closely the news that Window Media - publishers of some of the leading US gay and lesbian print media newspapers - closed for business last week.

Even The Advocate - one of America's gay news print media 'hero' mastheads is being spun into the pages of its more lifestyle-oriented glossy sister publication Out magazine.

Adapt and prosper

"In business as in life, everything changes," Johnson said. "Nothing stays the same. It is sad to lose publications that many of us have grown up with, and it is unfortunately probably true that only those gay media providers that recognize changing gay community media habits and LGBT market forces - and adapt accordingly - will make it through the recession. But those that do this will not only survive, they should prosper in the changing gay and lesbian media business landscape."

"Those that don't may join the ranks of gay print media that no longer publish. We hope that the numbers in that category can remain small."

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If you want to get your gay marketing up to speed to include the latest social media and other leading-edge gay marketing strategies, get in touch with market leaders Out Now.

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AdWeek 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 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.

US LGBT Publisher Shuts Down

One of the most important US lesbian and gay media publishers - Window Media - shut down today.


Ian Johnson, Out Now
November 16, 2009

Topics: LGBT media. LGBT communications. Lesbian and gay media publishing. Gay and lesbian market. Web 2.0 and traditional media. Washington Blade. Window Media LLC shuts down.

Some sad news out of the US today - one of the country's largest gay and lesbian media publishers - Window Media LLC - has closed its doors.

Publishers of influential gay market media products such as Southern Voice in Atlanta, Houston Voice and South Florida Blade; Window Media LLC had been struggling to maintain advertising sales revenues in a very tough economy.

The company also faced the effects of a continuing increasing shift of corporate advertising budgets to the online media world.

One of the company's media products - the Washington Blade - recently celebrated its 40th anniversary.

Laura Douglas-Brown, editor of Southern Voice, told AP that "there was just no more money to keep these companies running. We were all told that the companies would be sold. The fact that we were shut down was a complete shock."

Just last week I picked up what is now the last issue of the Washington Blade during a visit to DC.

One of the factors working against specialist LGBT media is that mainstream media is increasingly writing about gay and lesbian issues, reducing the consumer 'hunger' for news of gays and lesbians written from a gay and lesbian perspective.

I agree most strongly here with Michael Musto of NYC's Village Voice who said: "Window Media long provided a very special outlet for the gay community to learn about itself way before there were a lot of other places to find that type of thing. This was the gay community writing about itself, and that's a voice we should never lose."
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If you want to get your gay marketing up to speed to include the latest social media and other leading-edge gay marketing strategies, get in touch with market leaders Out Now.

---------------

AdWeek 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 won the "Outstanding Interactive" category in New York at the 'Images in Advertising' awards for an online campaign for their client Lufthansa.

Like this? Subscribe to Gay Market News. It's free. Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

-------------------
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.

TravelMole article on Out Now Gay Marketing Class at WTM

Out Now presented an information packed lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender marketing seminar today to the delegates at WTM London - World Travel Market. TravelMole has a report direct from the seminar.


Ian Johnson, Out Now
November 11, 2009

Topics: Gay marketing. Lesbian market. GLBT market. Lesbian tourism. Gay tourism market. Gay advertising. London WTM gay marketing information seminar. Out Now. London World Travel market. Out Now presents lesbian and gay marketing seminar to a packed audience of more than 170 travel industry professionals at WTM today.

My work keeps me out of trouble these days. I have changed country ten times in the past 5 weeks. Today it was London - and a presentation to over 170 travel and tourism industry professionals at London's World Travel Market WTM.

The seminar was titled "The Gay Marketing Puzzle - Solved at WTM by Out Now" and included high level tourism industry professionals Yaniv Waizman, Mayor's Tourism Advisor in Tel Aviv; Jeanette Schuchmann, Deputy Director of the German National Tourist Office, Lotte Jeffs, travel editor of leading lesbian magazine DIVA; and John Tanzella, President and CEO of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association IGLTA.

We were delighted to see the event qualify for my favourite three letter acronym - SRO - 'Standing Room Only'.

Out Now launched several initiatives we will report on here in coming days.

In the meantime, TravelMole has an article on this Out Now gay marketing seminar. As the article might require you to use a password to access, we reprint the article below.

Trade told to grab slice of gay and lesbian travel spend
November 11, 2009

Gay and lesbian tourism is growing annually but travel providers who don’t cater to the market will not capture this business, according to a leading thinker in the sector.

Ian Johnson, founder of gay marketing consultancy Out Now, told a World Travel Market audience on Wednesday that a whopping £4.7 billion was spent by the lesbian, gay and transgender market in the UK alone in 2007 (the last data collected) and that figure was growing annually. But he added that this market put feeling comfortable and safe at the top of their wish-list when choosing a travel operator and destination.
 
He said: “We have spent a great deal of time talking to the people who matter most in this equation – the consumers themselves – and from that we know that they want to go everywhere and do everything, not just go to known gay-friendly destinations – and it is their goal to travel with operators who understand their comfort zone and stay at hotels and resorts in destinations  that are tuned into them.

He added: "They want to use companies that are on the same page and are don’t want to have to out themselves to access the products that everyone else has access to."

Johnson played a series of video clips of talking heads discussing their travel experiences as gay travellers, with many recounting tales of travel providers failing to make them feel welcome. One example showed two gay men relating  how they are made to feel awkward whenever they booked into a hotel and are offered two beds instead of one, as a straight couple would be.

Johnson added: “If you are a travel provider, you should be thinking hard about the fact that £47 million a year is spent on gay and lesbian honeymoons and that the buying power of the UK gay, lesbian and transgender market is £81 billion. You should be talking to these people and finding out how to access that. This market wants to get out and travel but they want to feel they are being looked after and not made to feel uncomfortable.”
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If you want to get your gay marketing up to speed to include the latest social media and other leading-edge gay marketing strategies, get in touch with market leaders Out Now.

---------------

AdWeek 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 won the "Outstanding Interactive" category in New York at the 'Images in Advertising' awards for an online campaign for their client Lufthansa.

Like this? Subscribe to Gay Market News. It's free. Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

-------------------
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.