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Advertisers Target DINKs In Recessionary Times

It costs between $100,000 and $200,000 to raise a child to age 18 nowadays -- that's before college tuition kicks in -- according to Wes Combs of the marketing firm Witeck-Combs Communications. No wonder, then, that marketers are targeting DINKs -- Dual Income, No Kids -- who presumably put that extra discretionary spending power towards the gimcracks and geegaws that fuel the consumer economy, Jeremy Hobson reports.

Childless gay and lesbian couples are, of course, a stereotypical target, and Combs' data indicates why. According to a survey he conducted recently, 62% of gays plan to maintain or increase their travel budgets this year. Sure enough, reporter Hobson finds that there are no rooms available in the "gay Mecca of Provincetown, Mass." when he travels there to report out the story.

One guest house owner tells Hobson that overall business is off 20% from last year -- but not from childless couples, gay and straight. That's why, Combs says, marketers are "making sure that they target ... the limited dollars that they have for advertising, at a minimum, on this market."

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