Subaru gay
Case study: Subaru
The 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 s. When the company’s marketers went searching for people willing to disburse 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 research, we found pockets of the country appreciate Northampton, Massachusetts, and Portland, Oregon, where the head of the household would be a unattached 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 identity had also yet to embrace the LGBT cause. Mainstream movies and TV shows with homosexual characters -
Ed. note: The Subaru Outback is on a nationwide charm offensive. Yesterday, Casey gave his opinion of the model (lavishing tall praise on the Touring trim), and today, Sam offers his take. Match and contrast, y&#;all.
As I walked out the door of the U.S. Army, I remember telling my first sergeant, “You’ll repent getting rid of my gay ass, because someday, you and your ilk will want to be just like me and my fabulous kind.” It was , and I didn’t really believe it at that time, but here we are, all these years later, and not only do breeders desire to be like us, they constantly shop fond us. Whoda thunk, right?
Consider, for example, the Subaru Outback, a longtime dyke classic that today&#;s direct crowd can&#;t get enough of (which really bumps up the price). And they&#;re not just buying it to be pretend-lez, they&#;re buying it because they understand that the LGBTQs were onto something all along.
The Outback is one of the foremost SUVs out there. Continual all-wheel drive is just one of many reasons. This rugged, not-so-little but very maneuverable vehicle can take
I was recently lent the latest Subaru Forester to test operate, and I enjoyed its sturdiness, its space and the frugality of its hybrid engine. But as my mileage progressed over the course of a week’s bombing around the back roads of north Norfolk, I started to have a hankering for a nose ring, a tattoo of interlocking female glyphs, and to dye my hair pink and blue and wear dungarees. I put on a k.d. lang playlist, drove home, and watched Angelina Jolie in Gia. Was the Subaru turning me – a bloke, with no unusual pronouns – into a lesbian?
Let me explain. In the s, Subaru launched a calculated and groundbreaking advertising campaign on the US market. Rather than try to compete with their bigger rivals (Ford, Toyota etc) over the same white-bread suburban demographic, the Japanese company went after niche groups. Subaru built respectable but drab cars, yet they had a USP: their cars were all-wheel-drive, and the five groups that were identified as willing to pay a premium for AWD were teachers, healthcare professionals, IT professionals, outdoorsy types – and lesbians.
Lesbians
ow do you advertise a car that journalists portray as “sturdy, if drab”?
That was the question faced by Subaru of America executives in the s. After the company's shots to reinvigorate sales — by releasing its first luxury car and hiring a hip ad agency to introduce it to the public — failed, it changed its approach. Rather than fight larger car companies over the same demographic of light, to year-olds living in the suburbs, executives decided to market their cars to niche groups — such as outdoorsy types who liked that Subarus could handle dirt roads.
In the s, Subaru's one-of-a-kind selling point was that the company increasingly made all-wheel drive standard on all its cars. 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 research, we establish pockets of the state like Northampton, Massa