gay vague
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: gay-vague
Senses: examples: text: Mr. Wilke said he believed that happened because the spots are emblematic of a genre he called "gay-vague" advertising, when it's not clear what the relationships are.
ref: 1997 June 30, Stuart Elliott, “Homosexual imagery is spreading from print campaigns to general-interest TV programming”, in The New York Times:
text: Some advertisers try to play it safe by using what marketing experts call gay vague ads, which leave a reader guessing: Is he or isn't he? A Chase Manhattan ad in gay magazines features two handsome young men shaking hands and promotes bank services for "unique individuals."
ref: 1999 June 29, Ronald Alsop, “Cracking the Gay Market Code: Marketers Plant Symbols in Ads”, in The Wall Street Journal:
text: Now, some observers have suggested that, in addition to promoting the happy-making power of Minute Maid, the Popeye spot might just be an example of "gay vague," along with another commercial that I haven't seen, which is airing in Europe—read this for more.
ref: 2001 May 7, Rob Walker, “Ad Report Card: Minute Maid Makes You Gay! (Happy, That Is)”, in Slate, New York, N.Y.: The Slate Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 14 Aug 2022:
text: “Gay-specific ads will always win out over gay-vague ads with gay consumers,” said Commercial Closet's Wilke.
ref: 2004 January 14, Valerie Seckler, “Targeting Gays: Affluent Market Largely Ignored”, in Women's Wear Daily:
text: Other companies, such as Volkswagen of America Inc., have perfected “gay vague” advertising, says Michael Wilke, executive director-Commercial Closet Assn. that monitors and critiques gay marketing efforts.“The VW ads typically shows two guys together, and it's never really clear what the nature of their relationship is,” says Wilke.
ref: 2004 May 1, Christie Schweinsberg, “Perfectly Queer”, in Wards Auto:
text: It might be a showroom or one of the controversial ads for the line that got people talking some years back: A home for a same-sex couple, perhaps with a child; or a muscular male model, with a look that could appeal to consumers either gay or straight, which one media historian dubbed "gay vague."
ref: 2007 August 9, Joyce Wadler, “Amicably Split, and Still Sharing”, in The New York Times:
text: Commercial Closet, a repository of gay-themed ads, includes several spots that are merely gay vague—for instance, this Bud ad in which a guy rehearses his marriage proposal while kneeling before a male friend.
ref: 2009 June 8, Seth Stevenson, “Is There a Gay Couple in That Insurance Ad?”, in Slate:
text: The '90s also saw the nadir of coding's cousin, the so-called gay-vague ad, in which an artfully constructed scenario was obviously gay--except when it wasn't.
ref: 2013 June 16, Robert Klara, “Gay Advertising's Long March Out of the Closet Same-sex imagery is much older than you think”, in Adweek:
text: So-called "gay vague" ads, such as Budweiser's Tops and Bottles and Another One's Coming Out, relied on ambiguity and coded messages, while Volkswagen's famous 1997 Sunday Afternoon commercial featured two men in a car, understood either as straight roommates or a gay couple depending on the viewer's sexuality.
ref: 2015 July 21, Nick Rowland, “Brands that come out for LGBT rights must proudly walk the talk”, in The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 Mar 2023:
text: The risks associated with backlash deterred companies from outwardly marketing to LGBT families in the mainstream media. However, some companies began trying to connect with LGBT consumers without ruffling any feathers through coding and ‘gay-vague’ ads.
ref: 2015 February 11, Omid Scheybani, “How advertising has become an agent of social change”, in Medium:
text: As more companies began marketing to LGBT audiences, secret coding became something of a playbook known by the term "gay vague"—a way for companies to reach queer audiences with minimal risk of a conservative backlash.
ref: 2016 June 22, Alex Mayyasi and Priceonomics, “How Subarus Came to Be Seen as Cars for Lesbians”, in The Atlantic:
text: In the days of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” direct marketing to a gay demographic was rare for a major corporation, much less an automaker. So to avoid persecution, Subaru hid esoteric hints in their ads, a marketing technique later dubbed "gay vague."
ref: 2017 April 10, Samuel Hammond, “Sorry, Pepsi Haters, But Social Justice Needs Capitalism”, in LiberalCurrents:
text: Gay-vague advertisements have proven popular with the LGBTQ community members while avoiding backlash from straight consumers. However, as society has become more accepting, mainstream brands started featuring same-sex couples in their advertisements.
ref: 2019 February 5, Mohammed El Hazzouri, Kelley Main, Lisa Sinclair, “Out of the closet: Easing the backlash against same-sex couples in advertising”, in The Conversation, archived from the original on 28 Jul 2023:
text: While many brands had started to master marketing that was gay-vague, Levi’s took this idea one step further with a commercial that was produced with two distinct and different endings — each one targeted to either a gay or a straight audience.Instead of abandoning the trope of “guy gets girl” they simply offered an alternative, swapping in certain shots to reframe the story to appeal to a gay audience. When watching this commercial, men would have no idea that they were only seeing the version that was meant to appeal to their own sexual preference.
ref: 2020 July 17, Nils D'Aulaire, “Rainbow Road: The Secret History of Advertising to LGBTQ+ Consumers”, in SiriusXM:
text: Before there was queerbaiting, there was gay vague. And before there was pre-rainbow washing, we had "gay window advertising."
ref: 2021 June 15, Ro Kalonaros, “From Secret Code to Stereotype: The Evolution of LGBTQ+ Representation in Advertising”, in Adweek:
text: The desire to court queer consumers while avoiding public blowback led to a strain of advertising known as gay vague, using subtle elements that would register with LGBTQ+ people while flying over the heads of heterosexual audiences.
ref: 2023 June 29, Taylor Telford, “How queer went corporate: The 50-year evolution of LGBTQ+ marketing”, in The Washington Post:
glosses: Advertising which includes subtle hints or coding meant to be understood by gay and lesbian people, or sexually ambiguous individuals or relationships that may be read as a "gay" by some people and not by others. The term was coined by Advertising Age journalist Michael Wilke in 1997.