Never before has a U.S. city, resort or international destination used television advertising to invite gay travelers to visit, a fact confirmed by Michael Wilke, executive director of the Commercial Closet Association, a non-profit education organization that charts the evolving worldwide portrayals of the gay community in mainstream advertising. According to the Commercial Closet, only three overtly gay television commercials have ever aired. Two of those were for gay-owned tour companies, and one was for a large, airline-owned travel Web site.
Philadelphia’s spot is set in the city during the Colonial era. A young man pens a letter inviting his beloved to meet him at Independence Hall. While waiting for his love interest at the appointed place and time, the man is approached by a woman who glances his way but keeps walking. Not far behind is a man who greets the main character and gratefully accepts flowers.
"The commercial’s goal is to show Philadelphia as a welcoming place for all people," says Meryl Levitz, president and CEO, GPTMC. "The gay market is an extension of our leisure marketing efforts for the destination and complements our programs for other types of travelers, including family, girlfriends and baby boomers, along with the African American and Hispanic communities."
In creating the spot, the Altus Group reached out to Philadelphia’s gay and straight community to find directors, producers and actors who would donate their time, creativity and materials to make this commercial - and history. The Altus Group also donated most of its services.
"GPTMC presented this opportunity to us and we are grateful to our many partners and volunteers who made this a reality," says David Jeffreys, Altus Group president. "We made a TV commercial with a production crew of 30 that was shot in two locations for less than it costs to buy a full-page print advertisement in the largest gay media outlet."
The commercial will first air on cable channels such as Bravo, MTV, VH1, E! and Style in the Philadelphia area on June 2, 2004. The Philadelphia Comcast Spotlight advertising sales team and the Altus Group are working to place the spot in other areas served by Comcast with support from third-party sponsors who will be announced at a later date.
Philadelphia launched its gay tourism campaign, Philadelphia - Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay™, in November 2003, to capture its share of the $54 billion gay travel market. Since that time, gophila.com/gay has seen 50,000 unique visits. Each month, Web users download more than 1,000 gay trip planners from the site and, thus far, more than 1,200 people have subscribed to GayTripper, an electronic gay travel newsletter.