Clos du Bois believes there really is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
The Healdsburg wine company is quietly breaking new ground in the wine industry with its 4-year-old marketing campaign aimed at homosexual consumers.
Clos du Bois stepped up its campaign this spring. Its ad in gay publications features a wine cork emblazoned with the Gay Pride rainbow -- an instantly recognizable symbol in the gay community -- emerging from a bottle of Clos du Bois Sonoma County chardonnay.
"It has been very successful," said Margaret Davenport, senior winemaker at Clos du Bois. "Everyone is amazed at all the calls we have gotten."
A number of wineries have run their national ads in gay publications like The Advocate and Out. But Clos du Bois is the first to create ads specifically for gay consumers and make a sustained push into the gay market, said Michael Wilke, executive director of the Commercial Closet Association, a New York group that tracks and archives gay ads.
"There have been a handful of wineries [in gay publications] over the years, but none as consistently as Clos du Bois," Wilke said. "I don't know of any others that have actually employed a gay theme."
A growing number of advertisers are targeting homosexual consumers, a niche some marketing executives dub "the dream market." They see a consumer group that possesses high levels of disposable income and offers loyalty to brands whose advertisements acknowledge their identity.
Studies estimate the gay community spends US$250 billion to US$500 billion annually in America, although research is spotty because the actual number of gay people and their wealth cannot be documented.
Advertisers did not always embrace the homosexual community. But today, major corporations such as Xerox, IBM, Subaru, GAP, Reebok and United Airlines regularly advertise in in a host of gay publications.
Advertisers spent US$155.3 million on gay and lesbian print campaigns in 1999, up 29 percent from the previous year, said Todd Evans, president of Rivendell Marketing Co, a New York firm that places ads in more than 200 gay and lesbian publications across the US.
"The almighty dollar rules. When corporations see profits, all their other hesitations go away," Evans said.
Clos du Bois, a pioneer for wineries entering the gay market, has attempted to develop brand loyalty by reaching out to the community.
In the mid-1990s, the Healdsburg winery, at the urging of marketing executive John Calmeyer, started making donations to the Names Project Foundation, the umbrella group for the AIDS Memorial Quilt project.
The winery began advertising in homosexual publications in 1997, with an ad that showed the AIDS quilt and declared its support for the Names Project. A second ad, unveiled in 1998, depicted two men embracing within a collage of photos that again featured the AIDS quilt.
Clos du Bois has spent US$800,000 on the gay marketing campaign over the past four years, said Ruth Souroujon, the winery's marketing director.
Approximately 60 percent to 70 percent of Clos du Bois' budget has gone into advertising in gay publications, with the remaining money spent on donations.
The alliance with the Names Project dovetails nicely with Clos du Bois' corporate goals -- Souroujon calls it "marketing with a conscience."
For example, the winery works with restaurants to stage fund-raisers for the Names Project in which Clos du Bois will donate part of the proceeds from every bottle of wine sold in the restaurant. Sales increase significantly during these promotions, she said.
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