[Update: See below. This is not owned by Adify, as we'd originally implied]
Adify, an online company that is building ad networks for specific niches, has just announced its latest: the Gay Ad Network.
Adify, a Belmont, Calif. start-up which launched last year, and which got $19 million in financing a few months ago (see our coverage) is a small player relative to the other big ad networks.
This is a smart move, though. We’re in the age of niche advertising, and this lets gay and lesbian publishers, advertisers can more easily reach online gay audiences, for which there’s bound to be a solid market (albeit seedy one, if the comment below is any measure).
[Update: While Adify's platform is hosting this, the network was actually launched Mark Elderkin, former president of PlanetOut and CEO and founder of Gay.com, which he built into a large gay online community. The property is in fact not owned or operated by Adify; rather merely uses its technology. Gay Ad Network has its own sales, operations and marketing teams and Adify's technology handles things like ad serving, billing, reporting and campaign management.]
Adify said the network already offers access to two dozen independent publishers representing more than 200 Web sites.
More details here.
5 Comments
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Liberace said:
Right, can’t wait to see all of the targeted advertising for favored condoms, Palm Springs real estate, and attorneys specializing in gay divorce/dog custody battles. And before anyone shouts at me for being a bigot, pick up one of the local gay rags and note the advertising. It’s interesting reading.
PS - I am a “pole smoker” myself, and therefore part of this targeted demographic, and generally find attempts at advertising to this supposedly lucrative market to be lame, insulting, or both.
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GayManWithMoney said:
No self-respecting gay man would call himself a “pole smoker”.
Liberace sounds like a homophobic closet-case, who hides ‘gay rags’ under his coat. Matt Marshall is correct, THIS GUY does seem “seedy”.
IBM, GM, Chrysler, and EBay all consider gay America a solid target market.
Dog custody battles? This isn’t 1990! Time for Liberace to pull himself away from the sleezy classifieds section, and step out into the light.
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John said:
I think this is very exciting. You need to look at the national magazines and some of the larger gay web sites to see the kinds of advertisers this will probably attract. Companies like Bridgestone, Suburu, and Scion, among others, have been advertising to the LGBT market for several years now. The local rags tend to get poorer quality advertisers because they don’t have access to larger buyers, but that’s true in the mainstream markets as well.
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Scott G said:
Our site, GayCities, is one of the first participating sites (see the logo in that picture) and we’re pleased to be a part of it. And reagardless of the sketchy commenters, the advertisers on board are primarily mainstream advertisers seeking to reach the GLBT market. This helps them reach more GLBT consumers in one ad buy than if they reached each of the individual sites directly.
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Richard said:
After our site, http://www.BigJock.com, was turned down by advertising.com for having “mature” content, we are now running ads from gayadnetwork.com. Even though there is no nudity, profanity or anything objectionable - other than men without shirts, advertising.com felt our site was too racy…or too gay.
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