Gay surfers are a marketer's dream

Gay web users are among the most technologically aware consumers, according to new research by US marketing consultancy Forrester.

The research, released last week, is believed to be the first major market study that asked subjects to state their sexuality.

Although around 20 per cent gave no answer, the overall results showed that gay consumers are often among the first to buy new online tools, devices and tech gadgets.

The report states that gay men and women have the technology attitudes and demographics 'that marketers dream about', making them prime targets for digital marketing.

San Francisco-based Forrester introduced a sexual orientation question to their research this year for the first time. Jed Kolko, principal analyst for the firm, told dotJournalism how the subject was handled.

"We spoke to 60,000 households across the US and Canada. It's the largest survey we're aware of that's ever asked about sexual orientation.

"The survey was conducted by mail and the question was placed quite late in the survey. There were five options: heterosexual, gay or lesbian, bisexual, prefer not to say, and other. So we tried to make the question as benign as possible."

The research identified that 80 per cent of gay men and 76 per cent of gay women are web users, compared with around 70 per cent of straight men and women. They are also much more likely to buy gadgets such as PDAs, portable MP3 players and WAP-enabled mobile phones.

Sixty-three per cent of gays surveyed had made an online purchase in the past three months, compared to 53 per cent of heterosexuals and overall, gay consumers earn around $4,600 more per year. They are also better educated: 19 per cent of gay man and women have post-graduate qualifications compared with 14 per cent of straight men and and 12 per cent of straight women.

Mr Kolko said that the report will influence the web advertising campaigns of a range of major technology and lifestyle businesses.

"Companies will realise that they may have overlooked the gay community before. This will result in campaigns targeted more specifically to a gay market audience."

Source:
http://www.forrester.com/ER/Press/Release/0,1769,816,00.html

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