Corporations and others including the L.A. Police Department are increasingly seeking lesbian and gay employees in their diversity recruitment efforts.

Coors began with this ad in 1997, and soon after added its own gay-specific ads as well. Coors’ move -- an effort to repair years of damage from a gay boycott -- came after denying it would initiate gay marketing while rival brands Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light and Miller pursued the market.


Beer companies are well represented in The Commercial Closet, largely due to an effort in the mid-1990s to pull away from the industry's longterm sexist advertising themes that objectified women. Such commercials were summed up by the Swedish Bikini Team ads from Stroh Brewing Co. for Old Milwaukee. Looking for new material to mine, brewers began extensively playing with gay and transgender themes in their advertising. However, because beer drinkers are stereotypically macho, the tone of many of the ads were more negative.