Gaybourhoods Helps Companies and Not-for-Profits Understand the Marketplace Behaviour of the Gay Community

Toronto, June 30, 2010 – Environics Analytics, the marketing services company, today announced the release of a neighbourhood-level database that gauges the propensity of residents to be gay and measures their behaviour and spending potential in key consumer categories. Called Gaybourhoods, the new database helps companies, governments and not-for-profits better understand the marketplace behaviour of the gay community in four major metros: Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa.

Derived from a variety of privacy-friendly sources—no personally identifying information was used—Gaybourhoods features data on gay spending in 75 categories, including fashion, electronics, nightlife, home decor, fitness and health. The specialized dataset allows clients to estimate the size and spending power of the gay market at the neighbourhood level, determining, for instance, household expenditures for computer software or beer consumption for a particular trade area.

“Gaybourhoods is an advance in the effort to provide market intelligence about the gay community,” says Jan Kestle, President of Environics Analytics (EA). “No other Canadian company has the level of detail on the location and spending power of the gay population across so many categories. Companies and not-for-profits can now look beyond the traditional gay neighbourhoods to better locate and quantify the market potential of gay people.”

The launch of Gaybourhoods comes at a time when businesses—from auto companies to travel firms—are recognizing the buying power of this market. Because estimates vary on the market size, Gaybourhoods allows users to employ a high or low assumption (10 percent or 6 percent of the population, respectively) when developing marketing strategies.

In the past, a lack of authoritative data made it difficult for businesses to understand the marketplace behaviour of gay consumers and target their neighbourhoods for acquisition, retention and cross-sell programs. Now Gaybourhoods can help companies calculate the potential market among gay men for specific products like gardening equipment or fitness club memberships, estimate their tendency to renovate their home or frequent a movie theatre, and identify the suburban neighbourhoods with a significant concentration of gay residents. Gaybourhoods helps a retailer know, for instance, whether a downtown Vancouver neighbourhood like Davie Village or a close-in Toronto suburb like Leslieville are good locations to target pet food or a fitness club to a gay clientele.

To ensure the accuracy of Gaybourhoods, Environics Analytics collaborated with Nigel Pleasants, a veteran advertising executive and partner at Sal-Mark Inc., a Toronto-based company that provides consulting and business development services. His expertise aided Gaybourhood’s methodologist, Danny Heuman, in developing the specialized dataset. EA clients will be able to load the Gaybourhoods database onto their mainframes or into Envision, EA’s popular online micromarketing tool, to answer specific questions and develop their own applications for marketing to the gay community.

“For many years, Canadian marketers have intuitively believed in the vast purchasing power of the gay community,” says Pleasants. “But with the release of Gaybourhoods, the high spending patterns of the gay market in Canada are spelled out in detail. Better yet, Gaybourhoods provides marketers with detailed information about where gay neighbourhoods are located. Gaybourhoods is the tool that organizations have been waiting for to market successfully to the gay community in Canada.”

Gaybourhoods quantifies spending patterns and leisure tendencies in a particular urban market, calculating the potential for specific products, services and activities compared to the total market. When used in conjunction with EA’s PRIZMC2 segmentation system and other demographic data, Gaybourhoods illuminates the diversity within the gay market, providing insights into residents’ lifestyles, media patterns and psychographic values. Whether a client is selling home furnishings or promoting a political candidate, Gaybourhoods helps marketers make smarter decisions when reaching out to the gay community.

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[Media representatives who would like a Gaybourhoods highlights summary or map graphic should contact Marketing Director Emma Flood at 416.969.2733.]

About Environics Analytics
Environics Analytics is the premier marketing and analytical services company in Canada. Specializing in segmentation, site modelling and custom analytics, the Toronto-based company provides data-driven market insights to help clients find and keep their customers. It has the most experienced team of micromarketing experts in Canada. Environics Analytics is a member of the Environics group, a unique alliance of companies dedicated to providing intelligent research, analytics and communications. To learn more about Environics Analytics, please visit our website at www.environicsanalytics.ca or call Marketing Director Emma Flood at 416.969.2733.