Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 24, 1994 TAG: 9402240049
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Two giant national advertisers are taking widely disparate approaches on homosexuality and advertising that underscore how this contentious issue continues to divide marketers.
On one hand, Kraft General Foods is asking that none of its commercials appear during an episode of the ABC sitcom "Roseanne," scheduled to be broadcast Tuesday night. The episode, already the subject of considerable publicity, centers on a kiss the star, Roseanne Arnold, receives from actress Mariel Hemingway, who portrays a lesbian.
"No KGF commercials can run in the episode," read an internal memo sent inadvertently this week to reporters by a Kraft General Foods agency, Grey Advertising Inc. in New York. The reason, according to the memo, was because it "deals with homosexuality."
On the other hand, the American Express Co. has become one of the biggest mainstream marketers to run advertising in magazines aimed at gay consumers - even tailoring some general-market advertisements to those publications.
American Express and its agency, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide in New York, have created special versions of ads for Cheques for Two, travelers checks that can be used by a couple together or separately. Rather than featuring the signatures of husbands and wives, as the regular ads do, the special ads, in Out and 10 Percent magazines, display the signatures of two men and of two women.
The sharply varied approaches of the two marketers is emblematic of a rambunctious debate roiling corporate America. Some marketers are attracted by data showing high education levels and relative affluence among gay customers, making them demographically desirable enough to pursue even at a risk of offending consumers who disdain homosexuality.
Among those now aiming sales pitches at gay men and lesbians are Apple Computer, Calvin Klein, Grand Metropolitan, Sony and Time Warner. Even the Miller Brewing Co. and Philip Morris U.S.A., corporate siblings of Kraft General Foods, buy ads for beer and cigarettes in publications aimed at the gay market.
Yet the vast majority of marketers have continued decades-old policies of shunning any involvement or association with homosexuals because of the pervasive societal stigma surrounding homosexuality and concerns that they might be subjected to consumer boycotts.
"It is a fact of life we have to face and deal with," said Sandra Lucot, publisher of 10 Percent in New York.
"It all comes down to education. We need to be like the Wizard of Oz and give them the courage to jump into the market."
Michael Goff, editor and president at Out in New York, noted that "television is something very different from a gay magazine, which is being read by a self-selected group of people."
Still, he chastised marketers such as Kraft, which, he said, were blocked by "their fear from dealing with America as it is."
The Grey memo represents a typical admonition from mass-market packaged-goods advertisers such as Kraft, which tend to be more traditional in their marketing strategies. It also urged that spots not appear during a repeat episode of "Roseanne" that aired Tuesday, dealing with masturbation, and a repeat episode of "Law and Order" Wednesday night on NBC, dealing with racism.
"It's a very routine procedure," said Patrick Farrell, a Kraft General Foods spokesman in Northfield, Ill. The company was not scheduled to buy national commercial time during the three programs, he said, adding that the memo was intended to avoid running the company's spots in local station breaks.
The memo's contents became known because Grey, which handles spot, or local, television buying for Kraft General Foods, mistakenly faxed it to reporters rather than to its intended recipients, local television stations and advertising representative sales firms across the country.
"Everybody is concerned about the content of the shows where their commercials play," said Larry Hoffner, executive vice president for sales at NBC in New York. "There'll always be something in some episodes that will offend some advertisers.
"Roseanne" has already suffered its share of advertiser walkouts. Steve Battaglio, a spokesman for ABC in New York, said it "is too early to determine the advertising situation" for the lesbian kiss episode. But "whenever we've had advertiser concern lead to a pullout," he added, "we've always found an advertiser available to step in and buy at a good price."
by CNB