A month ago, General Motors put out a clever ad for the Chevrolet Volt in support of the Motor City Pride event in Detroit. The commercial, which showed a Volt telling its parents, “Mom, Dad, I’m electric,” attracted some positive attention. Actually, a surprising amount of positive attention. In response, the Detroit Free Press is reporting, GM is going to start putting even more Volt ads in LBGT media outlets. As Jan Stevenson, the co-publisher of Between The Lines, the gay and lesbian newspaper where the ad was first published, told the Freep, “This was a good omen. [GM] put their toe in the water, and it worked out really, really well. If anyone’s really paying attention to it, they would say, ‘Wow, this is an untapped market.'” GM spokesman Tom Henderson told the Freep that the as “told us that this was something worth undertaking when the opportunities present themselves.”
According to recent demographic surveys cited by the Freep, gay and lesbian people who are shopping for new cars make about 10 percent more money (an average of $120,641, compared to $109,678 for straight shoppers) and are “more likely to embrace fuel-efficient vehicles and high-tech features,” on average. Sounds like exactly the kind of customers who GM should get into a Volt test drive, and it would fit with GM’s history of supporting GLBT causes like Gay Day at the Movies with the Camaro (which did cause some problems) and employees who contributed to the It Gets Better campaign.
