Subaru gay ads
| Gay-Coded Subaru Ads Restore to Mainstream |
by Michael Wilke When a gay-targeted campaign from Subaru using light-hearted license plates began appearing in general outdoor advertising, the news media raced to understand the plates' seemingly "coded" messages, including "XENA-LVR," "P-TOWN" and "CAMP OUT."While few at Subaru thought of their campaign as secret coding, the idea has now caught on with a more deliberate, tongue-in-cheek reprise. The veteran LGBT marketer introduces a novel effort this month that offers a play on classic movie lines. Taking a cue from Norma Desmond and "Sunset Boulevard," one fresh ad carries the headline, "I'm ready for my closeup" -- accompanied by a close view of the hood of a Subaru WRX. A forthcoming example references Faye Dunaway in "Mommy Dearest," with the line, "Put a window where it ought to be," meaning a sunroof. "The gay community has a sense of ownership of literature and films," explains John Nash, who has been the creative director for Subaru's gay ads since the starting, first for the defunct Mulryan/Nash Advertising, and now for Moon City Productions. "We thought that it would be fun to casually and thoughtfully align movi Case study: SubaruIntroducing: Martina NavratilovaInternational tennis legend Navratilova was embraced by Subaru of America after the company began courting the womxn loving womxn market in 1996. A TV campaign features Martina among other female athletes in the "What Do I Know?" theme. The see includes golfers Juli Inkster, Meg Mallon and Olympic skier Diann Roffe-Steinrotter. Each asks, "What accomplish I know" about performance, control, grip, etc. Martina gets the last pos in, asking "What do we know? We're just girls." Tim Bennett wanted to dispel a limited notions. "Everyone assumes it's a sapphic campaign because it's her and they thought those other women were too. But Martina doesn't want to be positioned as a lesbian. She just wants automakers to speak to women in an intelligent way, something else few others perform even today." Having said that, it is remarkable how Subaru moved to the lesbian drivers more and more, with puns and wordplay that could only be construed as "targeting the L." Subaru also realized that if they just put gay terms in their ads, people would notice through their intentions in the blink of an eye as pinkwashing. They had to display that they really cared a Request a DemoHow an Ad Campaign Made Lesbians Drop in Love with SubaruSubaru’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 fresh 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 former focus on marketing Subaru cars to niche groups—like outdoorsy types who liked that Subaru cars could handle dirt roads. This hunt 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 Case study: SubaruThe beginning
How do you advertise a car 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 drive, 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 investigate, we found pockets of the country like Northampton, Massachusetts, and Portland, Oregon, where the chief 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 tradition had also yet to welcome the LGBT cause. Mainstream movies and TV shows with lgbtq+ characters - like Will & Grace - were still a couple of years away, and few celebrities were openly lgbtq+. |