Today’s Urban Gay/Lesbian market now contributes over $200 billion in annual spending and controls over $600 billion in annual buying power. The market defines itself through acquisitions and they choose to have only the “best of the best”. The Black Gay/Lesbian Expo will provide yet another platform to capture the market’s interests and needs within a safe and sophisticated environment that will allow those who wish to support this subset of the rainbow coalition to have a means to reach them. While brand loyalty may be on the decline with some U.S. consumers, it is increasingly important to one growing demographic: the gay and lesbian market segment. This demographic consists of up to 15 million people nationwide.

“Marketers are reaching out to create relationships with the gay customer because our research shows the gay/lesbian customer is extremely brand loyal” –Jeffrey Garber

Jeffery Garber is the President of OpusCommGroup, Syracuse, N.Y., which conducts the annual Gay/Lesbian Consumer Online Census in conjunction with the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University and Scarborough Research, a joint venture between Arbitron Inc. and VNU Media Measurement & Information.

Sixty-five percent of 8,000 respondents to a recent Consumer Online Census said that they were more likely to purchase products or services from companies whose advertising uses gay themes than from companies that do not. An important distinction to make is that, our community is primarily unmarried with no children to support; we have more money to spend on ourselves and as a result spend more freely.