Chevy Wins Award for “Gay” Volt Award

Chevrolet’s decision to resist “family values” critics and advertise in the gay media was rewarded with the Amplifier Award from GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, during a well-attended session in New York City last night.

The Chevy ad showed a new Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, framed between a more conventional Silverado pickup and Malibu sedan, declaring, “Mom, Dad, I’m electric,” a humorous twist on the classic challenge of gays coming out to their family.

The ad was originally published in a Michigan alternative lifestyle publication and cost the General Motors division just $750 to run. But it has since generated an estimated 11 million views on the Internet – and could gain even wider exposure in the wake of the GLAAD award – which triggered thousands of new postings on Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

The success of the “I’m Electric” campaign is quickly amping up the debate over whether mainstream corporations should – or can – advertise in publications targeting the LGBT, or lesbian, gay, bixsexual and transgender, community.  Some, such as Subaru, have embraced that market in recent years while others have shied away or pulled back after facing threats of boycotts by conservative values groups.

But this year’s Amplifier Award nominees suggested that as more public figures – such as CNN’s host Anderson Cooper – “come out,” and polls show a slim majority of Americans now accept gay marriage, advertisers feel they need to reflect that in their campaigns.  Chevy’s Volt pitch went up against ads from Lexus, Orbitz, Absolut Vodka, Gilead Sciences and even Amtrak.

“The advertising and marketing industries are catching up with the rest of the media by including more images of LGBT people in mainstream ads that target broad audiences,” GLAAD President Herndon Graddick stated in announcing the nominees last month.

The Volt ad was prepared for Chevy by agency Goodby, Silverstein and Partners and was published in the Motor City Pride edition of Detroit’s free LGBT publication, Between the Lines.

But the ad was widely reprinted following that initial run, picked up in both the gay community and in various social media.  It generated significant play, once again, after Tuesday night’s win.

“They deserve congratulations for taking a leadership role in advertising,” said Marty Bernstein, an advertising industry veteran and columnist for TheDetroitBureau.com.  But asked whether Chevy’s Amplifier Award will lead to significant changes in the generally conservative automotive marketing world, Bernstein said, “I don’t think so.”

That was echoed by a senior executive at a major Detroit ad agency in charge of large media advertising budgets.  Asking not to be identified by name due to their sensitive position, the executive said whether a company will market directly to the LGBT world is still “more a subjective than objective issue,” one that “comes down to the practices of each individual company.  Some makers still aren’t willing to go there,” even with a large potential audience in the gay community.

Part of the problem is the aggressive tactics taken by some conservative groups, such as the American Family Association, which have threatened to launch boycotts and other actions against those who advertise in the gay world.

Ford Motor Co. backed down after placing some ads in LGBT publications, a few years back. But the maker has since resumed such advertising on a limited scale.  Subaru, meanwhile, which has had great success targeting small niches of buyers, ranging from nurses to serious outdoor enthusiasts, has ignored the threat of boycotts – and, in the end, has become one of the fastest-growing brands in the U.S. market, the only maker, in fact, to post annual sales increases straight through the recent U.S. recession.