Is the sky really falling, Henny Penny?

Melbourne Herald Sun, Friday 24, 2011

I well remember reading to my little ones the tale of Henny Penny. Poor nervous chook, she feels an acorn drop on her head and starts running around crying out that "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

These days this is known as political rhetoric, and commonly found up on the hill in Canberra. Right now we seem to have a whole farmyard of neurotic hens.

When Four Corners revealed sickening mistreatment of Australian cattle, that raised an uproar (though mind you, a vegetarian might point out that the cattle are destined to be killed and eaten, whatever the method). Live shipments were banned.

In return, there are now dire predictions that Australia's cattle trade and its farmers are also about to die. However the research company IBISWorld quietly points out that live exports only made up six per cent of the industry revenue, and were contracting.

The real damage was done by drought and the strong dollar, and even so the industry is surging ahead with a growth forecast of 1.8 per cent per annum over the next five years. No falling skies here.

The carbon debate, of course, rouses the chorus of cockerels from dawn each day of the week. The Australian Coal Association warned that the carbon tax will cost some 4,000 mining jobs in three years. Mind you, at the same time, the Bureau of Statistics reported 8,000 job vacancies in the industry just in one month this year.

And let’s not forget that our currently-debated scheme was pitched based on suggestions made by BHP’s Marius Kloppers. After a half-year profit of $10 billion, he knows that the sky is well and truly in place, and is more interested in the long-term future of the industry – and our planet.

If you read the latest OECD report you’ll see that we came out of the economic storms with barely a ruffle. Unemployment is below five per cent, even as the mining and construction industries scream for more labour and implore the government to increase its migration quotas.

Inflation is below three percent, interest rates are stable (remember the days of double-digit mortgages?)

I can testify that our health system is one of the best in the world after a month of back problems. Weekly doctors, physios, scans and bags of medications later, if I added it all up it might have cost little more than $1000 personally. Compare that to the nose bleed I had in New York 14 years ago, that cost over $1000 for one outpatient visit.

Two months ago I wrote that never in history have we been richer, safer or more secure than this nation is today.

Now I know that I stand the likelihood of being branded a Polyanna. But let me tell you, while all the feathers and claws fly in the front sections of the newspapers, here at the back our topic is business.

We are businessmen and women talking with each other and we need to be rational, see clearly, not get panicked and flustered by all the flag-waving.

Our businesses have long lives ahead, a lot of people depend on us, we can’t afford to make daily changes of course in response to the latest squawk.

So after you have absorbed the day’s news, sit back, sip a tea, and take a clear thought about what the reality is so far, and what is likely in the future.

Make this the basis of your decisions. Don’t listen to Henny Penny, be a bit more Foxy Woxy in your perceptions.

ray@ebeatty.com

Out of the closet, steps the "pink dollar"

Melbourne Herald Sun, Friday 17 June, 2011

Living in St Kilda and shopping at Prahran Market in Commercial Road, you’d better believe that I’m aware of the “pink dollar” - which is what they call the market segment populated by gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders and other exotic variations from what the missionaries would accept.

Once a taboo subject that would never have graced the pages of this paper, the fact is that changed social standards have been rapidly followed by ever-questing marketers, never slow with their arithmetic.

In America they have already calculated a $750 billion market. Apportioning it to Australia’s population, that’s still a lot of bucks.

And let’s face it these LGBTs (yes, that’s the official term in US marketing circles) have certain advantages over their more conventional brethren. Like, few or no kids, or school fees, or families to support, feed, clothe and take on holidays. So what they earn they get to keep for themselves.

I’m talking in the third person here, but if it should be second-person, read “you”, with my apologies.

A couple of years back, the Sydney Star Observer surveyed their readership and found that they had an average income of $55,234, and that 54.7 per cent were managers or professionals.

In addition, 9.9 per cent owned businesses, only 8.2 per cent had children, more than half were in a relationship and that more than half had a tertiary qualification. Sounds like a dream target market to me.

In addition, a Queensland Pride survey found that 87.3 per cent of respondents were more likely to buy from companies which they perceived to be gay and lesbian friendly. So hang out the discreet rainbow flags.

Australian gay and lesbian marketing firm Significant Others says that the gay market is a good prospect for investors.

They score highly in many areas like automotive, alcohol, financial services, health and wellbeing, and particularly travel.

The gay life favours exotic destinations. With nearly half living in Sydney and Melbourne, a break means getting up and away.

Four years ago a Roy Morgan survey found them spending nearly a billion dollars on leisure travel. With the booming dollar pushing more and more adventurous holidays, you can be sure that the figure will be higher today.

The other side of the coin, however, is a lingering prejudice. Especially in some of Australia’s good ol’ boys destinations which also happen to have glorious beaches.

Recently Sunshine Coast Destination, the tourism authority, was criticised for not taking advantage of Sydney’s Mardi Gras.

Kelly Choong, a University of the Sunshine Coast advertising lecturer who is doing his PhD on ways of marketing to subcultures like gays, said the Mardi Gras should be particularly appealing to SCD given it was the low season.

However, he feels the local tourism operators may be dragging their feet because of community reluctance to invite gays into their midst.

"I think Sunshine Coast tourism authorities should be looking at this," he said, "It doesn't seem to have a welcoming feel."

So how real a problem is prejudice? Well just this year the Advertising Standards Board ruled on a TV commercial made by Westpac, where two very obviously camp lads talk to camera about slow payers in their clothing business.

The sucked cheeks and hand-waving were pretty obvious and drew complaints that they were portrayed as stereotypes. But in return the bank claimed the commercials went down well in the gay community.

In the end the Board found that: “The men are presented in a manner which, although somewhat stereotypical, focuses on their frustration as business owners and is not negative." Case dismissed, back to the carnival.

ray@ebeatty.com