Subaru and gays
Outward Explainer: What’s With Lesbians and Subarus?
By Izzy Rode
NBC
When Saturday Night Live’s Kate McKinnon channeled Billie Jean King on the Dec. 21 “Weekend Update” segment right after King was named to the official U.S. delegation to the Sochi Winter Olympics, the tennis great declared herself “President Obama’s big gay middle finger” to Vladimir Putin. She then promised to “drive my Subaru Outback into Red Square, doing doughnuts and blasting Melissa Etheridge.” We all know that Melissa Etheridge is a queer woman singer-songwriter, but why are Subarus so closely associated with lesbians?
Some would like to think that there’s some special Sapphic significance in the name, since Subaru is Japanese for Seven Sisters—albeit in the sense of the Pleiades rather than historically women’s colleges. In fact, though, the car company’s place in the roster of the righteous among the LGBTQ nations is a result of some very canny niche marketing.
Subaru is by no means the only car business to target
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 remunerate 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 favor Northampton, Massachusetts, and Portland, Oregon, where the head of the household would be a free 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 society had also yet to embrace the LGBT cause. Mainstream movies and TV shows with same-sex attracted characters -
Request a Demo
How an Ad Campaign Made Lesbians Drop in Love with Subaru
Subaru’s marketing strategy had just died in a fit of irony.
It was the mid s, 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 MPH, then asked, “How important is that, with extended urban gridlock, gas at $ a gallon and highways packed of patrolmen?&#;
After firing the hip ad agency, Subaru of America changed its approach. Rather than strive directly with Ford, Toyota, and other carmakers that dwarfed Subaru in size, executives decided to repay to its old fixate on marketing Subaru cars to niche groups—like outdoorsy types who liked that Subaru cars could treat dirt roads.
This search for niche groups led Subaru to the 3rd rail of marketing: They discovered that le
ow do you advertise a car that journalists detail as “sturdy, if drab”?
That was the question faced by Subaru of America executives in the s. After the company's efforts 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 colorless, 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 unusual 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 set up pockets of the state like Northampton, Massa