In a Diet Pepsi ad that aired during last year's Super Bowl, a sexy man turns heads as he walks down the street to the tune of the Bee Gees' “Stayin' Alive.” One of the many flagrant lookie-loos is Cindy Crawford, who was featured in a similar ad in '91. But for the kicker, Queer Eye For the Straight Guy's Carson Kressley spots the knockout and stops to have a look, removing his sunglasses and dropping his jaw like an errant football. The oblivious center of all the attention is surprised when he finally realizes he has attracted a small crowd. Then the Diet Pepsi tagline--"Light. Crisp. Refreshing"--appears on screen.

The ad won the Outstanding Commercial award at Commercial Closet's Second Annual Images in Advertising Awards last month. The organization partners with businesses to increase respectful LGBT references in advertising and also hosts an online database that is the world's largest archive of LGBT-themed ads.

At the same awards event, Nabisco received this year's Clean-Up-Your-Act Notice for one of its "Snack Fairy" commercials. The ad references Brokeback Mountain and features the snack fairy buffoon in a tutu being outwitted by a tractor. Two cowboys look on indifferently and one yells a condescending remark. By the time of the award ceremony, the company had already stopped running the spot. It also issued an apologetic statement to the event's attendees, indicating it had no plans to air the commercial again.

As spending for gay-themed advertising continues to rise, Commercial Closet's founding executive director, Michael Wilke, believes “there has been growth in all types of representation: growth in positive [ads], growth in stereotyped, homophobic approaches, and also in equal representations that are inclusive.”

He adds that gay men are faring better than lesbians, bisexuals and the transgendered, with “...greater diversity of representations, although the stereotyped representations continue quite strongly.”

Advertisers have long relied on homophobic representations of gay men for punch lines. One of the more egregious recent examples is a 2002 7Up commercial--part of the company's "Make 7UP yours" campaign--was yanked after a multitude of organizations attacked it for using prison rape as running joke.

Ads frequently milk laughs from female drag and other behaviors considered inappropriate for men. A Chevrolet commercial that ran for several years, including 2005, features a truck packed with male passengers as Shania Twain's "Man, I Feel Like a Woman" plays on the stereo. As one of the passengers starts singing along, the others grow increasingly uncomfortable, shifting away from the crooner and exchanging pained looks with each other. It only gets worse when he gets to the line “the best thing about being a woman…” The narrator then intones, "If you're ever uncomfortable in a new Chevy Colorado coupe cab, it won't be because a lack of space."

It's a fitting ad for a model named after a state once infamous for its homophobic political climate.

The auto industry, like the alcoholic beverage sector, is constantly competing for a larger share of the gay market. Even so, both industries have uneven track records for LGBT sensitivity in advertising, even within a single brand. It is said the LGBT community demonstrates a high degree of brand loyalty compared to the population at large, as demonstrated, for example, by the recent Ford boycott fiasco and subsequent resurrection of gay support after the company ended its capitulation to an anti-gay organization.

The fashion industry is home to the more ambiguous, androgynous, and homoerotic ads. The creative team of Bruce Weber and Sam Shahid brought us some of the earliest images of the sexualized male body with their 1981 Calvin Klein underwear campaign. In 1995, they produced a campaign for the CK One line of fragrances that detractors likened to kiddie porn.

Those commercials feature an adult male voice asking slightly creepy, sexually suggestive questions off camera while filming scantily clad teenaged boys, many of whom are clearly uncomfortable with the situation. Weber and Shahid subsequently produced homoerotic campaigns for Banana Republic and Abercrombie & Fitch.

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