Gay Ads: Business Or Propaganda?

Until recently, using gay themes in advertising was considered taboo, and a call for a boycott from one hate group or another usually followed. Remember Bill O’Reilly and the other FOX News goons going up in arms over the gay McDonalds France ad way back in 2010? This was pure liberal propaganda!
But was it? In 2012 alone, using gays and lesbians in advertising has taken off. Gap, Amazon, JC Penny, Doritos, Amtrak and Ray-Ban, among others, all produced ads featuring LGBT themes. We in the community would love to believe it’s simply because people are becoming much more accepting of gays; and partially, it is. As in most cases, though, the issue is being driven by money.
An annual report by Witeck Communications that tracks the spending power of different minority groups shows that the LGBT community is a large and growing market that companies are eager to tap.
Corporations pay big money for these types of studies, and reading over the statistics explains why they would. The 2012 report found that 47 percent of LGBT adults are more likely to purchase a company’s product or service when an advertisement has been tailored specifically to the LGBT community. Also important to note is that 23 percent of gays have switched products or services in the last year because another company was supportive of the LGBT community.
How much money are we talking about here? Witeck’s study projected the LGBT community’s buying power to be $790 billion, and growing...

A syndicated American article by Matt Watson.
Are we really supposed to take a survey by a company that came up with this ridiculous $790 billion figure seriously?
Also Watson doesn't consider how these ads are often not widely-distributed campaigns, but effectively just PR stunts aimed at the gay media.
How many poster sites was the US Gap ad above put on, for example, and in what magazines, if any, was it published?
For more on the myth of the pink pound and junk research go to this excellent blog, Gay Money.
For Fagburn on how Witeck's - a gay marketing company, incidentally - figures don't really work out go here.
Not that I'm suggesting a gay marketing company might have a vested interest in over-inflating the size of the gay market - no sirree!
Oh, and I love how you're working that sweatshop t-shirt, boys...

PS The title to this is the title to the article.

Update: Another article on this from Associated Press. Are gay ads the media's new gay dads - ie the new boring?