Google’s Android mobile operating system is #1 on the top 20 brands favored by the LGBT community, according to the researchers at YouGov BrandIndex. Last year, Google's YouTube topped the annual LGBT ranking.

The 2012 LGBT buzz list includes four Apple-related and several other tech and social media brands, and looks quite different from last year’s ranking, with 12 new brands making the top 20: Android, iPad, Target, Samsung, Aleve, Kindle, Advil, PBS, LG, Starbucks, Comedy Central, and Skype. Disneyland and Disney World share fourth spot, reflect the parks' annual LGBT days and outreach to the gay community.

“Gay consumers number 15 million and counting, spending $743 billion annually” in the U.S., according to LGBT marketing agency Prime Access. Falling out of the top 20 this year: Google, Amazon, Whole Foods, Claritin, HBO, Lowe's, Cheerios, Food Network, M&Ms, Nike, Trader Joe's and Bose.Continue reading...

It was as if the longest match in the history of tennis came down from the heavens for the makers of Aleve.

And it’s not much of a stretch to imagine American John Isner or France’s Nicolas Mahut – the two combatants in the more than 11-hour match played over three days at Wimbledon – endorsing the naproxen sodium tablets in the coming days and weeks.

After all, their first-round match was effectively an Aleve commercial, the way rugby games played in the rain evoke Tide and other laundry detergents.

Just days after the pair finished their gruelling affair – Isner prevailed, winning the fifth set 70 games to 68 – Aleve took out a full-page ad on page 2 in the sports section of Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper.Continue reading...