This week, we welcome the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce to our beaches and our sunshine, providing liberal access to both for the sold-out crowd descending on the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort just off Seabreeze Boulevard. The conference which saw its first arrivals Tuesday, continues through Friday with an agenda that covers networking, branding, benefits, and even marriage equality.
We attended this conference last year at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and can vouch for the power that common goals bring. But a lot has happened in the LGBT world since 2014. This Phoenix has risen from the ashes of contempt to stand tall in a world where being gay isn’t quite the horrible curse it was once thought to be.
With the ruling of marriage equality by the Supreme Court, the LGBT community is now being openly courted for its business like never before allowing companies like Multimedia Platforms Worldwide to provide a beacon of clarity to corporations hoping to reach our considerable buying power, currently estimated at $884 billion (with a “B”) per year.
Our buying power, also referred to as “pink money” is the amount of capital that individuals (or households) have available to spend and save after paying taxes and pension contributions to the government. It’s an amount equal to roughly 86% of income.
This figure has been growing annually, according to Witeck Communications, out of Washington, DC, that keeps track of such things. It was only two years ago that we were reporting that the buying power of the LGBT community was $790 billion—but as we said, a lot has changed.
Companies like Macys and CVS, Target and Best Buy have reached out for our business by welcoming us as employees and as customers. So too Sears and Safeway, Office Depot and Wells Fargo, Kellogg’s and PepsiCo, DuPont and the Capitol Grille.
Equally as important are those who fail to make any effort to seek out our business. Those names might surprise you. Publix Supermarkets, the major food chain in the South, scored a zero in the Human Rights Campaign’s Buyers Guide. Even more amazing is the zero rating earned by fashion icon Dolce & Gabbana since company founders Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana are gay and were in a longstanding romantic relationship until 2005. Ditto other Italian fashion brands founded by gay designers: Giorgio Armani and Gionni Versace. Zero and zero.
As the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce rolls out its agenda in the days ahead, it is well aware of the power that the LGBT community can muster if it unites in purpose to achieve common goals. Yet, by its very nature, LGBT’s are experts at hiding within themselves to fit into a society that has previously made every attempt to label us as mentally unstable, morally apprehensible and politically impotent.
To put our market strength in prospective, the LGBT community is second only to Hispanic Americans and African Americans in buying power. Hispanics traditionally wield over a trillion dollars in purchasing power with African Americans coming in well under that at $1,200 billion.
But mere numbers are deceiving. The LGBT community’s $884 billion purchasing power represents a cross section of America, including Hispanics and African Americans. We also behave uniquely in the marketplace.
The LGBT market is less fickle than the heterosexual consumer. Eighty-five percent of LGBTs remain brand loyal over the course of their purchasing lifetime according to surveys by Community Marketing Inc. and Harris Interactive. Seventy-eight percent would switch to brands that they know are gay friendly. Seventy percent would pay a premium to buy products from companies that support the LGBT community. And a full 55% would choose to do business with companies who choose diversity and equality in the workplace.
It is by certification through the NGLCC that companies wishing to reach the LGBT market can make their marketplace position known. And by looking for that certification, consumers can mobilize their purchasing power to show their support.
As more gays and lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders come out of the closet and stand side-by-side in business, religion, education and recreation, we pool our resources to gain a voice that has been silenced for far too long. Be proud and rejoice; our time is now.