Subaru gay commercial
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How an Ad Campaign Made Lesbians Collapse in Love with Subaru
Subaru’s marketing strategy had just died in a fit of irony.
It was the mid 1990s, and sales of Subaru cars were in decline. To opposite the company’s fortunes, Subaru of America had created its first luxury car—even though the small automaker was known for plain but dependable cars—and hired a trendy advertising agency to introduce it to the public.
The new approach had fallen flat when the ad men took irony too far: One ad touted the brand-new sports car’s top speed of 140 MPH, then asked, “How important is that, with extended urban gridlock, gas at $1.38 a gallon and highways full of patrolmen?”
After firing the hip ad agency, Subaru of America changed its approach. Rather than compete directly with Ford, Toyota, and other carmakers that dwarfed Subaru in size, executives decided to return to its mature focus on marketing Subaru cars to niche groups—like outdoorsy types who liked that Subaru cars could handle dirt roads.
This look for for niche groups led Subaru to the 3rd rail of marketing: They discovered that lesbians loved their cars. Lesbians liked their dependability and size, and even the n
Critical Media Project
This Subaru wagon commercial depicts an animated Subaru driving through various neighborhoods and landscapes. Throughout the advertisement, written questions scroll on the bottom of the screen, asking big questions about the nature of life. “How do you see yourself?”, “What do you view yourself doing?”, “Where perform you see yourself going?”, “How will you gain there?” At the termination of the ad, we the car stops by a lake, and two men get out of the vehicle, walking together.
discussion
Did you have any expectations about the genders of the drivers of the car? What shaped these expectations? Were you surprised that two men were revealed to be in the car? Why or why not?
Consider the victim audience for this ad. What is their age? Gender? Sexual orientation? Socio-Economic status?. What clues from within the advertisement aid determine this target audience? Consider both audio and visual cues, including the text at the bottom of the screen and the various environments that the animated car drives through.
critique
Subaru has long been been known as a champion for lesbian and gay rights, and was a sponsor of the le
Gay/lesbian vehicle choices: why?
elmwood1
A while ago, on the Car Talk Web site, there was a list of the foremost ten cars for gays and lesbians. Apparently, the top gay car was the Volkswagen Jetta; the top lesbian vehicle was the Subaru Outback.
It doesn’t seem like there’s anything inherent about these cars that would say “alternative lifestyle,” but based on my observations, whenever I see a woman driving in an Outback or Forester, a disproportionately enormous number of them stare butch and serious, many with a passenger that also has the equal look. Whenever I observe a Jetta driven by a man, a disproportionately large number of them look very attractive and very well groomed, at least compared to normal-looking guys like me.
I realize not all female Outback and Forester owners are lesbians, and not all male Jetta drivers are gay. Still, though, what is it about certain vehicles that causes them to be popular among the alternative lifestyle community?
Johnny_L.A2
I’m not gay, but I considered buying a Jetta several years ago. I’ve noticed that there are a loarge number of Subarus up here (a higher number per capita, it seems to me, than in L.A.), and I have no
Case study: Subaru
The beginning
How undertake you advertise a wagon that journalists describe as “sturdy, if drab”? That was the question faced by Subaru of America executives in the 1990s. When the company’s marketers went searching for people willing to pay a premium for all-wheel operate, they identified four core groups who were responsible for half of the company’s American sales: teachers and educators, health-care professionals, IT professionals, and outdoorsy types. Then they discovered a fifth: lesbians. “When we did the study, we found pockets of the country like Northampton, Massachusetts, and Portland, Oregon, where the head of the household would be a single person - and often a woman,” says Tim Bennett, who was the company’s director of advertising at the time. When marketers talked to these customers, they realized these women buying Subarus were lesbian.
In the ‘90s, gay-friendly advertising was largely limited to the fashion and alcohol industries. Pop culture had also yet to embrace the LGBT cause. Mainstream movies and TV shows with gay characters - favor Will & Grace - were still a couple of years away, and few celebrities were openly gay.
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