How Political Ideology Drives Response to LGBTQ Imagery

Summary

We know from prior research that different consumers have different emotional responses to ads that show images of gay men and women. New research shows evidence that political ideology is a key determinant, suggesting that marketers consider geopolitical segmentation and targeting to reduce potential negative outcomes to sales.

The researchers—academics and an agency planning manager—took a detailed look at political ideology, gender and sexuality in ads and the impact of each on consumer attitudes. Their work appears to be the first to find a link between consumers’ political ideology and reactions of disgust toward LGBTQ-themed ads.

Using a sample of 859 U.S.-based respondents, the authors discovered that political “conservatives (versus liberals) experienced a high level of disgust when viewing advertisements containing male-to-male homosexual imagery.” This aversion, however, was not evident when the same cohort reacted to ads that depicted  female-to-female homosexuality. And, there was the same kind of equanimity for both conservative and liberal research participants when heterosexual couples were featured. A replication study reported  the same outcome.

To avoid alienating conservative customers, the authors suggest the following:

• Marketers should consider geopolitical segmentation to guide marketing and media strategy.
• Therefore, marketers can utilize election data as a proxy for consumers’ political ideologies.
• By doing this, they can develop and run different creative content and messages on the basis of geopolitical segments.