Project Title	Outright
Date	Feb 2006
Objectives	To understand the gay and lesbian community via looking at: select social issues e.g. harassment, opinions about Channel 4, feelings towards brands, consumer behaviour in six key categories and their media consumption.
Method	Online survey
For more information contact	Helen Croxson or Donna Booth

Summary of Findings

Jointly commissioned by Channel 4, OMD Insight and GaydarRadio, Outright 2006 research is based upon a robust sample of 18,000 gay and lesbian respondents and 4,000 straight. Making it the largest ever survey to track the validity, strength, brand preferences and purchasing power of the UK gay and lesbian community. It delivers a unique knowledge base essential to successfully communicate with this distinctive marketplace.

December 21st 2005 saw the government finally recognising long term same sex relationships with the introduction of civil partnerships. In the US the advent of same sex marriages galvanised advertisers leading to an explosion in ads with gay specific content (astounding 242% rise year on year*) created a 28% rise in ad spend to 207 million dollars.* Most importantly the 2004 gay press report found that more than 150 Fortune 500 brands were active in the gay consumer market place in 2004, up from 72 in 2001 and just 19 in 1994.

Outright 2006 will help companies identify how best to communicate with this unique consumer group. The research covers lifestyle issues such as coming out and discrimination, brand preferences and attitudes for six core consumer categories and an in-depth look at media consumption and communication. It demonstrates that over a third of gays and lesbians claim to be more loyal to brands that are "gay-friendly" and half believe that if companies advertise in gay media then they should tailor their advertising. Sony, Gillette, Calvin Klein, Nivea & Virgin are amongst the brands that they feel most positive towards. Key findings include:-

1.	High awareness of gay partnership ceremonies - gays are currently more likely to want to get married than straights.
2.	Coming out has increased over the last 50 years and people are coming out younger.
3.	Discrimination is still unacceptably commonplace.
4.	Stereotypes exist, they are spending more cash, embracing male grooming, buying into new innovative technology, taking more city short breaks and expressing themselves through clothes and technology they buy.
5.	But beyond the stereotype we found three clear clusters: - highly visible style setters, gay home-birds and gay pods.
6.	Positively for C4, gays and lesbians state C4 as their favourite channel. C4 is seen as being the most representative, the bravest, most provocative, and most intelligent channel amongst this market.

For further information please visit: - http://www.outrightresearch.co.uk