Monday, February 21, 2005

Sell out!

I’ve always found it quite brilliant the way that us gayers cleverly shroud our numerous naughty doings behind the guise of something innocent and lovely. For example, one of my friends keeps his obscenely massive modeled-on-a-Falcon-porn-star dildo wrapped in a swathe of beautiful, orange, embroidered, raw silk fabric that he purchased from a peasant woman in Sri Lanka. A couple of years ago my buddies Angela and Matt gave me a set of anal beads, various condoms and flavours of lube and some gay porn playing cards packaged neatly within an exquisite Chinese, hand-carved, wooden box.

As a marketing person, if you get what all of this means, then you will know that in order to promote your bland, generic, ultimately hetero products in a way that will appeal to us intelligent, discerning, savvy gays you'll have to be prepared to create a clever spin that is both a little sexy and a little racy. Semi-naked, oiled up men will not go amiss (just as long as they are intelligent, discerning and savvy semi-naked, oiled up men.)

One of my clients makes very expensive, mock antique, miniature boxes (we call them objets d'art) made out of precious metals, featuring little renditions of famous works of art. During a meeting to discuss the campaign media strategy I was informed by my client that he had read an article in a newspaper about the power of the pink pound and that he thought perhaps we should be attempting to get the boxes in the gay press.

Now, this guy is about 60, most likely has a huge country pile somewhere in Nottinghamshire, a farty old Labrador called Hugo and a wife called Felicity who is on first name terms with Princess Michael of Kent (I wonder if she is ever called Mike?) Despite this, the way that he said "pink pound" spoke volumes to me about how he probably wants to be seen as "trendy", as I'm sure he would put it, and in touch with the "playas" without, of course, literally having to touch us.

With what I thought was immensely staggering logic I suggested that the best route to achieve this objective would be to subtly appeal to the type of gay man (of whom within London there are many) who takes weekend recreational drugs. Of the kind that might be stored in a little box. Now, obviously you wouldn't distribute a press release that read:

"...divine hand crafted miniature gold and platinum objets d’art , lovingly adorned with a sublime depiction of the Venus de Milo. Discreet enough to hide your stash of Ecstasy in without setting off metal detectors or raising unwanted suspicion while being frisked at Beyond."

...however you could distribute a press release that read:

"...divine hand crafted miniature gold boxes, lovingly adorned with a sublime depiction of the Venus de Milo. The perfect gift for the gayer who likes to get the most out of his weekend."

The client just tilted his glasses and mumbled something incoherent. With lightening speed I tried to turn my apparently unfortuitous suggestion around.

"Well how about some kind of cause related marketing initiative? You could extol the virtues of the product to HIV+ gay men who have strict meds regimes and donate a proportion of the profits from certain sales to an HIV/AIDS related charity? The gay press would love it."

Silence. I can feel my profit related bonus slipping through my fingers.

So what did I do? I saved my ass by scraping the bottom of the barrel, selling out both myself and my fellow homos:

"Or...we could do a press mailing about the box which features the Andy Warhol painting of James Dean? Gay men love Andy Warhol and James Dean."

He looks up, considers this option for a second and then nods.

"Yes. I like that idea. Let's do it."

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