Toward an understanding of consumer self-marketing: An examination of gay and lesbian advertising appeals

Consumers are actively participating in self-marketing online, creating selfadvertisements and presenting their personal brands to others. The purpose of this study is to examine the advertising appeals used in self-marketing by gay men and lesbian women who go online to advertise for a date or partner. A total of 1,200 personal advertisements were content analysed to identify the type of advertising appeal used and differences were then compared by gender via a chi-square test of proportions. Findings show that consumers utilise a variety of advertising appeals in their self-marketing and that differences exist in the usage of the advertising appeals by gender for gay men and lesbian women. With the growth in people who identify as a member of the LGBT community and the growth in acceptance of LGBT people, this research provides new insight at a time when advertising to the LGBT community is no longer about creating separate advertisements targeted toward a niche group, but advertisements that offer inclusion and acceptance of all people. The paper discusses implications for self-marketing and advertising to LGBT consumers.