Being Out Now
Inclusion & diversity, DEI, Belonging — whatever name you prefer to call it — is part of a decades-long trend towards greater respect and equality. Inclusion is becoming more important as cultures globally become increasingly diverse; and members of society, including corporations, need to reflect that reality.
At a time when DEI is under unprecedented assault from political forces, Being Out Now takes an informative, engaging and topical look at what is going on. It separates the ‘signal’ from the ‘noise’ to explain what is real and what is merely rhetoric. The podcast will invite guests to share their expertise, insights and knowledge. It will use facts and data to counter misinformation and political spin.
Where culture meets inclusion
Diversity is a reality of modern life in most cultures across the world. Inclusion is a practical response to this. In the past couple of years we have seen deliberate attempts to derail the ongoing process of inclusion and belonging. Claims that DEI is illegal or that it is a bad thing are ludicrous and represent an attempt to hijack the culture of society to advance certain biases and specific political goals.
Being Out Now is a podcast with discussions about the intersection of culture with diversity and inclusion and how that affects people, businesses, workplaces and society. We look at latest news and events, politics, business and more – all through the lens of culture and inclusion. Our conversations are backed up by robust relevant research and data.
This podcast is all about facts, not lies; realities, not fictions — and we plan to have some fun along the way.
Most importantly, we consider the impacts these things have on people’s everyday lives and share practical steps that listeners can implement easily — to advance the continuing progress of inclusion and diversity in society, workplaces and cultures.
About your host
Our founder
Ian Johnson, Founder and CEO of Out Now has more than three decades’ experience in delivering award-winning market leadership in LGBT+ insights, inclusion and global business strategies.
Ian works with clients at the intersection of culture, diversity and inclusion. His work has been regularly featured in leading global media such as the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Fortune, The Economist, CNBC, BBC-TV and many more.
After graduating from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia in 1988 with degrees in Law (LLB) and Commerce (BCom (marketing)) Ian Johnson worked with Citibank and two leading law firms in Australia. Following the delivery of successful outcomes for project-based marketing clients, Ian established Significant Others in Sydney in 1992, which rebranded as Out Now when the company expanded internationally.
Ian Johnson has established an unrivalled level of experience in developing effective LGBTQ+ inclusion approaches that work. He set up what is now the world’s longest-established global LGBTQ+ community research program. Ian’s experience sees him in high demand for client consultation and speaking engagements.
Leading-edge work includes ground-breaking tourism campaigns, research studies and inclusion initiatives focused on LGBTQ+ people for leading organisations, including IBM, Fujitsu, AXA, Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, Toyota, Qantas, visitBerlin, Citibank, Lloyds Banking Group, Barclaycard, German National Tourist Office, Vodafone, VisitMexico and VisitBritain.
Out Now has been nominated for multiple communications awards for its creative content work through the years. Ian was the winner of the “Outstanding Interactive” award, for his Lufthansa ‘OutShots’ online LGBTQ+ tourism campaign, at the Commercial Closet LGBTQ+ ‘Images in Advertising’ Awards, held at the Time Warner Center in New York.
Since being established in 1992, Out Now has been relied on by clients for more than three decades. We are also regularly relied upon by leading media around the world to help their audience better understand LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Ian posts his personal thoughts and opinions on Bluesky. He is also on LinkedIn.
Some sample TV and print media interviews with him appear below.
Award-winning creative
Ian Johnson was honored with the Commercial Closet LGBTQ+ ‘Images in Advertising’ Award for the category “Outstanding Interactive”, presented by Emmy-winner Judy Gold.
Location: Time Warner Center, New York.
Campaign: Lufthansa ‘OutShots’
Interviews with Ian Johnson
BBC-TV
Award-winning journalist Emily Maitlis interviews Ian Johnson live in the studio on BBC News.
Ian discusses some key UK findings from Out Now’s global LGBTQ+ community research program.
CNBC
Ian discusses the valuable economic impacts of LGBTQ+ consumers with specialist finance channel, CNBC.
He explains the important need for companies wanting to better engage with LGBTQ+ people to do so both strategically and with understanding.
The Economist
Our CEO, Ian Johnson, is named in the ‘Top 10 Diversity Consultants’ of the Global Diversity List (now renamed Global Inclusion List), supported by The Economist magazine.
In this interview he explains to The Economist why LGBTQ+ inclusion has become so important for business.
AFP
Agence France Presse
In this interview with AFP (in French en francais), Ian Johnson talks about the importance of providing an authentic, comfortable welcome to LGBTQ+ travellers.
The Today Show
The most important breakfast TV news program in Australia, The Today Show, interviews Ian Johnson about LGBTQ+ people and the plan to create a full-time LGBTQ+ targeted radio station in Sydney.
BBC News — Fast Track
In their feature on LGBTQ+ tourism, this BBC travel show speaks with Ian Johnson about the vital importance of hotels and destinations offering a genuinely warm, respectful, insightful welcome for their LGBTQ+ guests.
This TV report also references Out Now’s research on total annual LGBTQ+ travel and tourism spending.
Foxtel-TV
This interview discusses an LGBTQ+ consumer trade show and expo created by Ian Johnson as Founder of Out Now’s parent company Significant Others.
This community expo in Sydney featured the premiere of the world’s first LGBTQ+ themed airline advertisement, created by Ian and Significant Others for Australia’s Qantas Airways.
The interview on Foxtel show The Hub is hosted by Amanda Keller.
BBC Breakfast
For many years, Ian Johnson has helped define the leading-edge of LGBTQ+ inclusion, in countries around the world.
Here he is interviewed by BBC-TV for the BBC Breakfast program about the importance of LGBTQ+ people to the consumer strategies of corporations and other organisations around the world.
Late Night TV coverage
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Additional media coverage
EXTRACT: Ian Johnson, chief executive of Out Now Consulting, a marketing agency that specializes in gay marketing content, says that while he wishes [companies’ social media] accounts could be rainbow-colored in Dubai and Egypt, “I don’t want to jettison all the progress that’s been made for the sake of winning a binary argument where the choice is lose-lose.”
In other words: It is better for companies to do something rather than nothing.
EXTRACT: Alcohol companies were among the earliest to court queer consumers, according to Ian Johnson, principal consultant at Out Now, an LGBTQ+ business development consultancy.
Catering to queer customers was risky in the early-1980s as the AIDS epidemic started to devastate the LGBTQ+ community, leaving its members isolated and ostracized. At the time, there was little insight into queer people’s tastes and spending power, Johnson said. The risk of backlash for aligning a company’s identity with queer people was significant.
EXTRACT: Ian Johnson, chief executive of Out Now, a global marketing firm that specializes in LGBTQ research and marketing, told DW that among the 10 largest EU economies, Poland’s “pink economy” is ranked seventh and accounts for almost 165 billion zloty (€36 billion; $38.2 billion) a year.
Out Now’s Johnson argues that Polish politicians should care…LGBTQ voters comprise almost 2 million votes in total, a figure that can be important in a tight contest. “Candidates choosing to demonstrate support for equal treatment of LGBTQ people should expect to find the 2023 electoral landscape much more favorable than during the 2019 national parliamentary election, when support for LGBTQ people across Polish society was far less widespread,” Johnson said.
EXTRACT: “This year gay and lesbian people in Britain will collectively earn a pre-tax pay packet of more than £70bn. They will take two to three holidays annually. That is a highly attractive target audience,” said Ian Johnson, [Out Now] consultancy’s managing director. “The market should hold an irresistible appeal to big brands, but sadly many couples are badly treated and shown no respect,” he added. “When you are a gay traveller, something as simple as checking into a hotel is a stressful situation,” Mr Johnson explained. “It’s all about equalising the playing field.”
EXTRACT: While geographically separate from mainland Spain and its religious influence, the islands have a long history of tolerance with a “live-and-let-live outlook”, says Ian Johnson of Out Now Consulting, which advises clients such as Toyota and Citigroup on how to tap into the $2tn global gay market.
He says a “tipping point” has passed, with more than half of the public in key markets such as the US declaring themselves supportive of LGBT rights. It has now allowed property businesses openly to target gay property buyers.
EXTRACT: Ian Johnson, chief executive of Out Now, a consultancy advising companies on the development of lgbtq marketing strategies, says his initial reaction to the toy’s launch was dismissive. He thought lego was just another firm keen to make a quick buck at the start of Pride Month. He changed his mind once he saw how lego made its new product very visible by, for instance, publishing a five-minute video on its website of Mr Ashton telling the story of [the designer’s] struggles with his sexuality at the height of the aids epidemic.
EXTRACT: “It’s a drain on the economy to have people leave a job because they’re unhappy just because they can’t be themselves at work,” said Ian Johnson, chief executive of Out Now. Of the 17 per cent of LGBT employees in the UK who have not disclosed their sexuality to anyone at work, 10 per cent of them would be more likely to stay with their employer if they felt happy to come out, saving the economy millions in the cost of replacing them.
“It’s the right thing to do, to treat workers with respect,” said Mr Johnson. “But, secondly, this data shows it’s good for businesses’ bottom line to better treat their LGBT staff, and make it easier for them to come out to [everyone] they work with.”
“Up until now, I think [the policy] has been seen as a ‘nice-to-have’ policy… but you also now have a business imperative to do better in this area. One of the things that I think a lot of companies have failed with is trying to measure or understand the return on their investment in diversity,” said Mr Johnson, who suggested that companies could display their policies more visibly online and include them in job applications.
EXTRACT: Ian Johnson of Out Now Consulting said one factor more than any other was driving the gay travel market forward – money.
“There are more and more destinations, airlines, hotel groups chasing the lucrative pink gay and lesbian euro, pound and dollar,” he said.
“But as competition increases, you can’t just fly a rainbow flag and be gay-friendly, you actually have to deliver on the promise and that is the challenge for the industry today.”
Out Now estimates the gay travel market could be worth $142bn (£90bn) next year.
Mr Johnson advises travel companies on how to provide better services to gay clients – right down to the greeting a gay couple might get when they check in to a hotel.
He said: “Lesbian and gay travellers want what everybody else wants.
“When you travel – and it’s not that difficult – it’s not rocket science – you want to relax and you want to feel comfortable. That is why you spend your money on going on vacation. Where lesbian and gay people are the same, the environment they are operating in is different because they are not the norm.”
EXTRACT: Ian Johnson is the chief executive officer for Out Now, an LGBTQ+ marketing agency that has worked extensively with the tourism sector. Johnson says Out Now hasn’t trained any hotels in Qatar but has helped tourism officials support LGBTQ+ people in [other] countries. For Qatari hotels that want to host LGBTQ+ guests, Johnson recommends staff are trained on how to best support them. Johnson admits that this might not be that realistic. ‘We worry that this may be very difficult or may simply be impossible in all the circumstances for many accommodation providers,’ he says. But experts’ top tip for LGBTQ+ World Cup fans? Don’t go to Qatar. Johnson himself was among them. ‘Some ardent LGBTQ+ fans will no doubt prioritise football and choose to attend the World Cup in Qatar,’ he says. ‘However, these will be a minority of the much larger number of LGBTQ+ fans who would normally be expected to attend if the event was held in a more supportive country. When you know you could be imprisoned, or [even] risk being put to death, it becomes very difficult to feel welcome or safe in such a place. The only completely safe option seems to be not attending.’ After all, Johnson says, safety is something LGBTQ+ people have to keep in mind when booking holidays or travelling for work.
EXTRACT: The “so gay” ad campaign was done by Out Now Consulting, which is based in Australia and helps customers target gay consumers. The client was Amro Worldwide, which specializes in travel for gay clients.
Ian Johnson, chief executive officer of Out Now, said the ads are still in place and the company has been paid by Amro for its work. Johnson thinks the state’s elected officials are playing politics with their reaction to the campaign.
“The politicians have a problem with gay people or believe that many of their constituents have a problem with gay people,” said Johnson, who said he is gay. “That’s politics, but it doesn’t make it right.”
EXTRACT: An advertising campaign on the London Underground to promote gay holidays has caused a political furore in the Bible belt state.
Ian Johnson, chief executive officer of Out Now, the gay marketing agency that created the campaign, claimed that the South Carolina Parks, Recreation and Tourism Department (SCPRT) “chased us to be included in the campaign late on. We had to buy extra panels at Covent Garden to include South Carolina. In addition, SCPRT hosted Andrew Roberts, the CEO of Amro, in South Carolina so that he could check that there were sufficient gay-friendly aspects to the destination before including it in the campaign. Places like Charleston and Myrtle Beach have quite strong gay and lesbian communities.”
EXTRACT: Officials in South Carolina have replaced southern hospitality with southern hostility following an advertising campaign that featured posters declaring, “South Carolina is so gay.”
The campaign, launched by marketing agency Out Now Consulting, was intended to promote Amro Worldwide, a London-based gay tour operator, and to tout tourism to several gay-friendly U.S. destinations. In the week leading up to the British capital’s gay pride parade on July 5, the agency placed 60 posters along escalators in London’s Leicester Square and Covent Garden tube stations, which serve Soho, the city’s gay hub. The South Carolina poster features a generic image of a plantation, and hyped the state’s antebellum architecture, golf courses and gay beaches.
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EXTRACT: About half of all branded advertising in gay media in the U.S. is tailored for that market, and that, says Ian Johnson, managing director of Out Now Consulting, is “what European companies are not yet getting right.” Some brands hit the right note: ads for the German National Tourist Office appearing in Britain earlier this year had a separate message for gays and lesbians. Others simply strike out heterosexual references for a gay audience.
LISTEN: WNYC radio interview with Ian Johnson
EXTRACT: A London-based advertising campaign, aimed at generating gay travel to the United States is selling South Carolina as “so gay.” South Carolina officials are saying “no way.” The Takeaway talks to the ad man behind this controversial campaign.
Guest: Ian Johnson, Founder and CEO of Out Now Consulting. The firm helps companies market to gay and lesbian communities.
EXTRACT: Ian Johnson, the founder and managing director of leading gay marketing consultancy Out Now Consulting, says operators and agents see the market “purely as a giant pink wallet full of cash”.
“This is something that is turning would-be clients away in droves. There’s a heavy degree of cynicism among gay and lesbian consumers and they know many brands just see them as a rich niche market.”
Johnson – who is hosting a keynote seminar at World Travel Market called The Gay and Lesbian Market – Your Essential ‘How To’ Guide – claims many operators and agents try to exploit gay couples because of their perceived professional status and high levels of disposable income.
“Premium pricing just for the sake of it is a big no-no, but in part it’s what a lot of companies do to target gay clients,” he said.
Out Now is best in the world at what we do and since our inception we have remained committed to continuous improvement. Many things in life are uncertain but one thing I know, from over three decades’ of practical experience, is that this time next year Out Now’s offering and results will be even better. We will always continue to strive and define ‘world’s best’ for inclusion and belonging.
– Ian Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, Out Now
