It’s no longer revolutionary for brands to target queer folks with their marketing efforts. Most major brands partake in Pride marketing at the very least. Many now consider queer consumers to be an important target audience. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?
Not always, especially if you happen to be a member of the LGBTQIA+ community who lives in the South or Midwest, in that case, what passes as queer-friendly marketing ignores you at best, insults you with stereotypes, or treats you merely pitiable.
That’s a shame because queer folks from these regions have stories and experiences that deserve validation. Truly inclusive marketing campaigns should give them a platform rather than ignoring or ridiculing them.
Overlooked: Queer Life in The Midwest And South
Let’s start by dispelling harmful stereotypes. First, queerness is not synonymous with urban, coastal communities. Queer people are living in rural areas and suburbia whose lives represent genuine diversity that is rarely reflected in marketing campaigns.
Unique Challenges
People in these regions often face unique challenges that those who reside in urban or coastal regions do not. These include:
- Living in conservative socio-political climates
- Lack of acceptance and visibility
- Limited or no access to community resources or queer spaces
- Having views and interests that align with neither local peers or queer folks from major metropolitan areas
Now, imagine those challenges on top of a lack of accurate representation in media, and being misunderstood/mischaracterized by brands.
Invisibility: Southern And Midwestern Perspectives on Queer Marketing
It doesn’t take much research to see why queers in the Midwest and South feel invisible. To start, so many ad campaigns are centered around larger cities like San Francisco, NYC, Los Angeles, London, and Seattle. These LGBTQIA+ ad campaigns may unintentionally alienate queer individuals living in rural and suburban areas for many reasons:
Geographic Exclusivity
This geographic exclusivity centers the experiences of urban and coastal queer individuals while ignoring those of LGBTQIA+ folks who live elsewhere. The result is an erasure of queer culture that doesn’t fit a very specific mold. It also reinforces the stereotypical notion that queer communities can only thrive in big cities.
Lack of Representation
It’s hard to feel visible when you don’t see yourself in a brand’s marketing campaigns. A queer person in St. Louis, Bloomington, or Indianapolis is going to feel excluded by advertising narratives that ignore their stories and experiences around community building or overcoming adversity.
Lack of Cultural Understanding
Marketing campaigns often portray queer culture with a monolithic, urban-centered POV. While this may be aspirational to some, others find it doesn’t resonate with them at all. Their realities are entirely different. For example, queer activism and community building often happen on a smaller scale.
Important Intersectionalities Are Ignored
Marketing teams often fail to apply nuance to queer campaigns. This often means ignoring intersectionalities. When these things are addressed, it’s still done through a lens that centers the urban experience. Meanwhile, the intersectionalities of queerness, race, socioeconomic status, religion, ability, and culture are often significantly different for folks in the South and Midwest.
Propping up The Myth of Queer Flight
These ad campaigns also communicate that queer folks cannot be happy or fulfilled unless they leave their communities and move to major cities. While many do follow this path, these campaigns ignore those who choose to stay and work to make their local communities safer, more accepting spaces.
Use of Stereotypes And Tokenism in Queer Marketing
Queers in the South and Midwest aren’t just underrepresented in marketing, the representation they do receive is often problematic. The rural Midwestern or Southern character is often a token, if they appear at all. Then, marketers portray them in ways that just further stereotypes. Not every queer person in these regions is sad and oppressed with a family who hates them. Not every queer person wants to leave their community.
What Southern And Midwestern Queer Folks Want in Marketing
What queer folks in these areas want is authentic representation. They want to see marketing that features genuine stories told by authentic voices that resonate with people who don’t live in urban communities.
Focus on Local And Regional Campaigns
Dial in your campaigns instead of casting a wide net. You aren’t going to accurately represent the cultural nuances of the Midwest and South with marketing content that’s too generic. Don’t try to insert Southern and Midwestern representation into urban-focused campaigns. Instead, understand that people from these places deserve their own space and stories.
Rethink Intersectionality in Your Messaging
If you’re embracing intersectionality in your LGBTQIA+ marketing, that’s great. Just know that intersectionality doesn’t look the same everywhere. Consider how intersectionality with race, religion, economic status, etc. might be experienced by queer folks in the south and Midwest. For example, the experiences of a trans woman dealing with rural poverty will be different from those of a trans woman navigating that in a major city.
Don’t Ignore or Mock The Influence of Local Culture
Just like their straight peers, queer folks from rural areas are subject to cultural influence. They don’t always reject the values, interests, and aspirations they’ve acquired simply because of their sexuality or gender identity. Even when they do, they still feel a bond and connection to their community of origin.
It’s important that brands understand this to make marketing content that genuinely resonates with this audience. Also, to avoid using tropes and stereotypes that could be offensive to rural queer folks.
Create marketing campaigns that showcase shared values and interests as they are relevant to the queer identity. Show people as valued, integrated community members, not as outcasts. Portray queer folks engaging in activities that reflect their lifestyle and culture such as being outdoors, volunteering at community events, or being active in church.
Avoid using offensive tropes that portray their fellow community members as backwards, uneducated, or hateful. Even when these things are done in a humorous way or to portray queer struggle, the end result is often hurtful. Keep in mind that this kind of content ridicules the queer people you want to target along with their friends and loved ones.
Why Rural Queer Audiences Matter
According to the Williams Institute, 57% of people who identify as LGBTQIA+ live in rural communities. Queer audiences in the South and Midwest are a significant demographic that brands often overlook. While much of queer marketing focuses on coastal regions and urban areas, rural queer folks have purchasing power that shouldn’t be ignored. They also bring unique perspectives to the table. When brands engage with them authentically, they are often rewarded with brand loyalty.
Additionally, the queer folks often feel isolated in their communities due to a lack of LGBTQIA+-friendly spaces, fewer resources, and less visibility. Because of this, they appreciate brands that include them and affirm their identities.
Rural queer consumers aren’t just a powerful market on their own. They are active community members who intersect with different identities. Reach them and your brand may also be able to connect with local business owners, community groups, etc. Brands can tap into cultural trends and traditions that queer folks value as much as their straight neighbors. Remember that expressions of queerness often mix with traditional rural values. That’s something that can be represented in queer-focused marketing.
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