Twenty Million New Customers!: Understanding Gay Men's Consumer Behavior / Edition 1

by Steven M Kates

Overview

Most of the world’s population is in the dark when it comes to the consumer patterns of gay men. But in Twenty Million New Customers!: Understanding Gay Men’s Consumer Behavior, you’ll leave all the dark, homophobic myths behind where they belong—in the closet—and come out into the light. In its colorful and informative chapters, you’ll see why gay men are a vital consumer lifeline to today’s clothing industries as you tap into revealing psychological characteristics that will benefit any business manager.

A scholarly yet personal, poignant study, Twenty Million New Customers! is a mixed shopping bag, taking you on a day-in-the-life tour of the buying patterns of 44 gay men. As an up-to-date catalog of scholarly data, it helps you see how “mainstream” businesses can tailor their marketing methods to this rapidly expanding demand in a competent, professional, and ethical manner. As a commentary on lifestyle, it transports you to unexplored consumer behavior territory that most people still consider “deviant.” Specifically, you’ll read about:

• in-depth, personal interviews from gay consumers
• real-life problems and market needs of gay men
• consumer behavior as political protest
• self-concept, identity, community, and culture
• the creation and maintenance of gay consumer subculture
• research methods and managerial implications of the study
  
  A recent survey estimates that over six percent of U.S. consumers openly acknowledges themselves as gay—clearly a priceless niche. So if you’re a gay man trying to get the skinny on the latest bodysuit trends, a marketing scholar involved in quantitative methods research, or a manager interested in retiring your old, outdated business savvy to the closet and exchanging it for a flashy, new, informed sense of marketing pizzazz, read Twenty Million New Customers! It’ll shut the closet on the harmful myths surrounding gay consumerism and open the door to success.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781560239031
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/06/1998
Series:	Haworth Gay and Lesbian Studies Series
Pages:	250
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.38(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Contents Preface

• Acknowledgments
• An Ethnographic Study of Gay Men’s Consumption
• Meet the Informants
• The Creation and Maintenance of Gay Consumer Subculture
• Consumer Behavior and the Construction of Gay Identities
• Consumer Behavior and the Construction of Gay Communities
• Consumer Behavior as Political Protest
• Consumer Behavior, Gay Community, and Identity
• Managerial Implications of the Study
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1: Open-Ended Questionnaire
• Appendix 2: Specific Probing Questions
• Appendix 3: Informant Data
• Appendix 4: Informants and Consumer Ritual Stages
• Appendix 5: Informants and Conformity Strategies
• Bibliography
• Index