Pink Banana Media & LGBTBrandVoice.com

I'm not sure if you have heard, but it seems as if we are in the middle of a bad economy. Chances are you have heard and have an opinion about it. All over the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media outlets, people are weighing in about investments, currencies and credit. The markets are under analysis and people are giving a million suggestions on how to deal with the situation. Unfortunately, one key demographic is blatantly absent from a lot of these discussions. Young adults are not often brought into discussions relating to finance for a variety of reasons. The most critical reason being that a lot of college students and recent graduates simply do not have enough accumulated wealth or savings to be a part of the target market many financial institutions are soliciting. Regardless of the reason, younger people, me included, feel like nobody is speaking to them. To further this stigmatization, gay and lesbian youth are pushed even further away. The general feeling in the busine...

Over the years, quite a few gay travel websites have come along, with some emerging as real leaders in this strong GLBT niche market.  Very few, however, have managed to keep up by utilizing some of the latest technology online today including travel social networking, online video and blogs.   NewGayTravelGuide.com , however, is one of those exceptions.  Starting out as a single blog covering the GLBT travel market, the folks at NewGayTravelGuide.com ( Michael Snel l and Derrick Sorles of Chicago, IL) have developed an entire network of GLBT travel blogs covering such popular destinations as Puerto Vallarta, Palm Springs, and of course, their home town of Chicago itself. Providing daily GLBT travel articles on their sites was one of the more important aspects of how they've gotten started.  Their articles are of the breadth and quality that has earned this team the opportunity to be included on a variety of destination's GLBT media familiarization trips, including one recent ...

Use DHTML or XML to integrate your blog, as well as photos and video on your website One of the top questions I receive, after “should I do a blog” is “how do I best integrate the blog into my website?” This report is intended to fully answer that question. Managing content properly on a website has been a challenge since the first websites came online in the mid-90s. Originally, if you wanted your website’s content updated or changed, you sent the changes to your web designer and waited until he or she was able to make the changes manually, in HTML format, for you. Then, along came content management systems, some expensive and customized and some simpler and off-the shelf. With content management, an administrator could set it up so that select writers could submit fully formatted articles online. The article information, along with photos, would be saved in a database format (MySQL, MS Access, etc.) and programmed to display on the web site, without the writer having to know an...

In This Issue Integrating Blog Content on your Site via an RSS Feed Use DHTML or XML to integrate your blog, as well as photos and video on your website ...the attractiveness of using a blog for content management goes way beyond its ease of use and the ubiquity of its experienced user base of writers. Blogs are interactive! They allow your readers to interact and comment on any of the blog postings, and other readers can then interact and comment with each other as well. Blogs are also very structured in terms of how they store content and thus very easy for search engines to index and include in various search results. Since the blog will more than likely be pointing back to your company's main website, the increased search engine exposure should result in increased traffic to your website... Spotlight on NewGayTravelGuide.com Over the years, quite a few gay travel websites have come along, with some emerging as real leaders in this strong GLBT niche market. Very few, however, h...

Pop and Dance Hits with a Gay Sensibility Over the past few years, we've had a variety of satellite and online radio stations appear with some incredible content ranging from dance music to talk radio. We've also recently had real world, terrestrial radio stations bring their music online including 92.7 Energy out of San Francisco and 103.9 Pride FM out of Toronto. Now, we have PrideRadio, brought to us by Clear Channel, with content ranging from online music streaming to Internet on-demand music videos and podcasts. What sets this new station apart is not only its corporate support by one of the largest radio media companies in the world, but rather its focus on reaching gays & lesbians wherever they may be, whether that's online, in the car, in their homes or on their iTouch and iPhones. By having these multiple "touch points" to the gay & lesbian consumer, PrideRadio.com can better command a marketer's dream of remaining "top of mind" i...

One of our clients, The Clubs, is looking for an individual with hospitality training experience who can travel to their various locations throughout the country to provide ongoing customer service training to their staff and management. They are looking for someone with both hospitality industry experience (hotel experience preferred) and the ability and some experience at having done this kind of training in the past. If interested, please e-mail Dennis Holding at dennis648@aol.com .

Monthly Gay Business Report November 2008 Edition A monthly companion piece to the annual Gay Market Report , this monthly publication features select new articles from the Gay Market Report , as well as Current GLBT Business News relevant to companies targeting the GLBT community. In addition, we're featuring a variety of company spotlights on unique companies in the GLBT space, as well as successful companies reaching the GLBT community. In This Issue 5 Steps for Successful Social Media Marketing Let's say you've gotten the approval to get your company involved in social media marketing and are ready to launch your efforts. How will you define success? Spotlight on Clear Channel’s PrideRadio.com Over the past few years, we've had a variety of satellite and online radio stations appear with some incredible content ranging from dance music to talk radio. We've also recently had real world, terrestrial radio stations bring their music online including 92.7 Ene...

This was my first Interpride convention I'd attended thus far, and I can definitely say I'm looking forward to the 2009 Interpride Convention in St. Petersburg, Florida next year. I had the opportunity to present a full hour of Web 2.0 and Social Network marketing tips to the conference attendees, and it went over very well. Getting that out of the way on a nice Thursday morning allowed me to relax for the rest of the conference and hang out with all of my new Interpride friends, where we had one of our first evening events at Celebrity's Nightclub in downtown Vancouver. Somehow the night just took us away, and the next thing I know we're off dancing with more new Interpride friends at the neighboring club, Odyssey. Good times! The wine tasting event on Friday night was another winner, and on Saturday the Gala Dinner brought us all together for one final evening of great food and fun entertainment. Of course we all wandered off to Celebrity's again (after a pit ...

We all had a great time in NYC this past week... I flew out for some meetings and to do a presentation to Justin Nelson, Chance Mitchell and the NGLCC board about social network marketing and Web 2.0... a lot of good questions were raised and it'll be exciting to see how this new form of marketing integrates nicely into the current success story that NGLCC is today! Afterwards, of course, we all met for happy hour, where I got a chance to spend more quality time with Vince of Wells Fargo and Brady from the Guggenheim Museum, as well as Rob Shmalo and Matt Link. Also joining us were Richard Oceguera and Thomas Kovaleskie, the two guys heading up the NGLCC-NY team. It was the start of a GREAT evening!

As you may already know, PR Veteran Howard Bragman and Founder of Fifteen Minutes has a new book coming out the first part of 2009 titled, Where’s My Fifteen Minutes? So what can one find in this book? Well, for one, there really is a heterosexual guy on TV. And he's actually quiet about it! And he's even played a gay! We're talking about Doug Savant , who portrays Tom Scavo on Desperate Housewives , but who first rose to attention as the fagelah Matt on Melrose Place . This all comes up in Howard Bragman 's upcoming book, Where's My Fifteen Minutes? , an exploration of the p.r. game and how to make it work for you. Check it out at: http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/archives/2008/10/shocker_hollywo.php

It seems like this past week has been a whirlwind. We all arrived in Vancouver on Sunday night, October 5th, for the opening night cocktail reception at the Sheraton and as usual, this night proved to be a prelude to what turned into a fantastic week of workshops, panels, seminars and good old fashioned networking with some of the leaders in the GLBT travel industry. Highlights include the party at Celebrity's on Tuesday night, hosted by Mya Lake Reyes of the Las Vegas CVA. But that was the closing night party... in between Sunday and Tuesday night, we were entertained by Travelocity at an incredible party at Oasis, as well as some over the top dinners with our friends at both PlanetOut.com (thanks to Gus Preston and Scott Furman) at Delilah's and Logo.com thanks to Matthew Habib. At the workshops, some of the new information we learned included the Bear market thanks to Stevo of A Bear's Life Magazine (but Stevo, some of those video clips were just a tad over the top!) a...

Monthly Gay Business Report October 2008 Edition A monthly companion piece to the annual Gay Market Report , this monthly publication features select new articles from the Gay Market Report , as well as Current GLBT Business News relevant to companies targeting the GLBT community. In addition, we're featuring a variety of company spotlights on unique companies in the GLBT space, as well as successful companies reaching the GLBT community. In This Issue Where Have All The Gay People Gone? There is an interesting phenomenon sweeping the gay community these days. Although there is a lot of discussion and conjecture as to what is going on, to date no one has quite been able to put their finger on it. That phenomenon, quite simply is, "where have all the gay people gone?".... Marketing Strategies for Staying Competitive in the Gay and Lesbian Market An in-depth look at the success of VisitBritain and Visit London in the GLBT Marketplace There are several marketing camp...

There are several marketing campaigns in the GLBT community that most everyone is familiar with - the Absolut campaign with their back cover ads on various GLBT print publications, the American Airlines campaigns ranging from event sponsorship to print and online advertising to extensive in-person networking with the infamous Rainbow Team, and the then there is the VisitBritain and Visit London advertising campaigns, consistently running for the past several years in a way that continually reminds us of the UK as a top GLBT travel destination. It seems that everywhere we would turn we would run into some marketing effort of this campaign, ranging from a billboard on Santa Monica Boulevard to a large booth at Chicago’s North Halstead Market Days (with hot, kilt-wearing men recruiting passers-by to come on over), with all points online and in print covered in between. So how did they do it? As a destination ahead of the curve and setting the path for other destinations to follow, what...

Pink Banana Media Releases Essential 2009 Gay Market Report Extensive Report Details Opportunities Available Within Gay & Lesbian Marketplace LOS ANGELES [SEPT. 18 2008] Pink Banana Media, founded by President Matthew Skallerud, has just released its 2009 Gay Market Report, a comprehensive report detailing various opportunities and media sources for companies that wish to target the gay & lesbian community. The 146-page report contains a summary of opportunities available to businesses, including web site links for those they wish to get in contact with. For media outlets that have chosen to participate by including their information in the guide, readers will find a more precise breakdown of information, including contact details that will allow readers to make better informed decisions as to which sources will best serve their marketing needs. Every year, the book is updated accordingly with the most current information and will continue to grow along with...

We had an incredible time at the IGLCC Summit in London this past week. With almost 100 registrants, this organization continues to grow and should be a must-attend GLBT business-to-business event in 2009 with the conference scheduled in July in Copenhagen, coinciding with the OutGames. We had great networking opportunities and workshops focused on GLBT marketing as well as a detailed explanation about their upcoming corporate ratings index they're debuting this year. Side events including a very pleasant reception at the Novotel hotel sponsored by VisitLondon and Accor Hotels, as well as a closing cocktail mixer at Simmons and Simmons law firm in London. Whilst I was there in London (my English accent is now developing), I did arrive early so that I'd be wide awake during the conference and thus enjoyed London a bit on my own before the conference began. I attended the store relaunch of ROB London, a very cool and hip leather shop in Soho, as well as had a chance to really e...

Marketing to the Gay Community on the Internet? Looking for valuable insights? A competitive edge? Attend This Gay Market Seminar ONLINE Gay Marketing and Web 2.0 LOCATION Las Vegas, NV Thursday, October 9, 2008 - 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm Paris Hotel (Loire Room) Snacks included Los Angeles, CA Tuesday, November 11, 2008 - 9:00 am to 11:00 am Hilton LAX Hotel (in Carmel Room) 5711 W Century Blvd / Los Angeles, CA 90045 Breakfast included! Miami, FL Tuesday, March 24, 2009 - 9:00 am to 11:00 am Wyndham Miami Airport Hotel 3900 NW 21st Street, Miami, FL 33142 Breakfast included! COST: $75 Certainly, everyone is aware of the gay market. You're likely already involved. But how can you "think outside of the triangle" and advance your positioning in this increasingly competitive space? We will be showing you some of the current trends in making outreach to consumers using the latest Web 2.0 tools including My...

There is an interesting phenomenon sweeping the gay community these days. Although there is a lot of discussion and conjecture as to what is going on, to date no one has quite been able to put their finger on it. That phenomenon, quite simply is, "where have all the gay people gone?" You may be confused, telling yourself you know where they all are - they're in the gay villages all throughout urban centers across the world. The reality is that they are not… at least not in the numbers that we have seen in the 80's and 90's, when gay life really came into its own. During that time numbers were high in several national gay publications and multiple local gay newspapers in regions such as Los Angeles, New York and even Louisville, Kentucky. In the late 90's, the GLBT websites hit the scene, with PlanetOut.com, GayWired.com and Gay.com taking an early lead in what had become a global phenomenon in its own right. This phenomenon, the rise of the Internet, affe...

Welcome to the 2009 Gay Market Report, a comprehensive look at various opportunities and media sources for companies wishing to target the gay & lesbian community. Much of what you will find in this report is a summary of the opportunities available, with website URLs being the primary source of contact. For the media sources that have opted to participate in this guide, you'll find a more comprehensive breakdown of information along with contact details to allow you to make better informed decisions as to which sources may best serve your marketing needs. This guide is intended to cover the full range of gay & lesbian media sources and opportunities, including Internet, Print, E-mail, Events and more. Each year this guide will be updated with current information and will continue to grow along with the gay & lesbian media marketplace. Brief History of the Gay Market The emergence of gay & lesbian media is a somewhat recent phenomenon of the past 30 years. Starti...