Girls Know Best

It was July of 1985 and my family was living in Manilla at the time, it was my brother’s birthday, he was turning 11 and my Dad had just bought him a Tamiya Subaru Brat. It took my brother about one and half weeks to complete the car with the paint and decals. Finished, he immediately took it to the backyard without supervision and with much anticipation turned it on to see what it could do. Within maybe fifteen seconds the steering servos locked, and it headed straight to the pool at an astonishing speed, this happens when you build a RC car when you are eleven. The side of the pool had a perfect lip for resting your arms, but today it was the perfect ramp. This lip in addition to the speed and suspension of the Brat launched it magnificently into the air. Wheels spinning, it dove into the water head first like a drunk duck, sank, and hit the bottom. Much to our surprise it kept driving. After hitting the wall, we retrieved it, dried it, and let it sit for a few hours. Much, to our surprise it turned right back on. This was my first experience with Subaru and its reliability. As I grew up, I found a much more fascinating, interesting, and important story about Subaru. One that changed the outlook of Subaru as company, its customers, its fan base and even had many other companies follow in their footsteps. They did all this involving subtle jokes, a tennis legend, a princess warrior, and making a stand for equal rights.

Picture: Tamiya Subaru Brat

When Subarus first started importing cars to the US in 1968 people were not exactly plastering posters of them in their bedrooms ogling them for hours fantasying that one day they could own one. Their first ad campaign for the “Subaru 360,” a small, front wheel drive two-stroke car was marketed as “cheap and ugly,” not exactly the strong selling point you want to convey when introducing a new model. However, the 360 produced great gas milage (66mpg), were extremely dependable, did well in the snow, and were inexpensive, exactly what the ad promised. This spoke volumes to rural areas in the Northeast and Northwest which is where Subaru did find a great market for their cars.

Pictured: Subaru 360

This market only grew when Subaru introduced AWD in 1972 in the Subaru Leone 4WD Estate Van, despite its name it was the Subaru’s first AWD passenger car. Subaru at the time was the only manufacture to offer AWD in their vehicles outside of driving a truck. AMC did not introduce its Eagle with AWD until 1980 and Audi’s quattro system was not introduced to the US until 1983. And the rest is history as some would say, not exactly. Sure, there were pockets of people in a geographical niche market who would buy their cars but as time progressed other manufactures would create AWD vehicles at a similar price point and then there was the SUV spike. Subaru needed to expand its brand and market, fast forward to the 1990s.

The early to mid 1990s was not a great time for Subaru, sales were in decline, company was losing money, they were lost as a company, they were in market full of SUVs without one, their inventory was stale and boring, and were trying to market their first luxury car, the beautiful but way overpriced SVX. Instead of trying to be something they were not and compete with heavy hitters like Toyota, Honda, Ford, and Nissan, they decided to go back to their roots and focus marketing on the niche groups it already had and knew about. The adventurous, outdoorsy, kayak, bike riding, crunchy granola types which enjoyed that a Subaru could get them somewhere lost, remote, dirty, and back.

Pictured: Subaru Outback being remote

If you are unfamiliar, Subaru has set itself apart by making all-wheel drive standard across its lineup. When R&D went to target buyers willing to pay extra or a premium for this feature, Subaru identified four key customer groups who accounted for half of its U.S. sales; teachers and educators, healthcare professionals, IT professionals, and rugged outdoorsy adventurous type. But what they were not expecting was to find a fifth group, an overlooked untapped market that loved Subarus. Lesbians. They found out that lesbians were four times more likely than the average Joe to buy a Subaru. Chip Levine a Subaru mechanic back in 1984 at Falmouth Subaru was asked, “who his best customers were,” he answered “Lesbians,” followed by "a lot of the cars we work on have rainbow decals on them." Betsy Smith the executive director of EqualityMaine the state's leading advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered people say, “that she specifically drives a Subaru because they market to the LGBT community.” But there has to be a reason why lesbians and the LGBT community drive Subarus right? They found out it was the AWD, the size, dependability, and reliability which aligned with their low-key lifestyles. After finding out this bombshell of information they were not sure what to do with it or how to make it work for them or to even make it work for them. You have to remember this was the mid 90s, people were not as openly out or accepting as they are today with homosexuality. There were a maybe a handful of celebrities that came out, President Clinton just passed the, “Don’t ask, Don’t Tell” policy on military service of non-heterosexual people, and on a more bizarre and lesser-known incident, IKEA just aired one of the first ad campaigns depicting a gay couple (two men) and some looney called in a bomb threat on a random IKEA store. Subaru needed a splash, so it doubled down, rolled the dice and decided to focus the majority of their ad campaigns towards lesbians. The payoff worked out better than they had hoped for, not only in sales and company loyalty, but it also paved the way for other companies to follow and do the same which helped the LGBT community get the recognition and respect it has always deserved.

So how does one harness this untapped niche market that no other car market has, or even knows about? Subaru stepped back and focused what it had in its arsenal. First, there was a strong business case for Subaru’s new marketing approach. The company was struggling, and its niche marketing campaign of embracing the LGBTQ community while every other manufacturer and marketing teams were fighting over the same old boring, Sarah Plain and Tall, suburban market of white 18–35 year olds. The global business perspective also influenced Subaru’s approach. The team recognized that appealing to lesbian customers required more than just an ad campaign, they needed to support their LGBTQ+ employees and LGBTQ+ people globally.

The approach was in full effect by 1996 when you could find ads appearing in both gay and mainstream media. As with any campaign there was going to be some backlash, especially with conservative groups with such a progressive message. However, Subaru was confident that their customers being highly educated and a diverse group were above the petty criticism and would not give it a second thought. Just some quick facts. According to Down East Magazine, 66% of Subaru customers have a college degree or higher, 62% have incomes above $75,000, 68% are pet owners, and of those 48% are dog owners. And they were right. During the backlash the conservative people and groups that did retaliate enforcing the idea that Subaru was promoting homosexuality would never purchase a Subaru again. Ironically, none of these people had ever owned a Subaru and, to lay the irony on thick, reinforced the idea of well-educated groups purchasing Subarus by misspelling Subaru in their letters. It was by far the best feedback for any marketing research team a company could receive and any response needed was put to rest. 

Ad Execs convinced with the data and satisfied with the ad campaigns did not want to fly too close to the sun right away. The elegant dance of building a lesbian-friendly image had to be performed in subtle gestures, winks and nudges, hoping the general public would not recognize them. Subaru was betting on the ignorance and blinders that many straight people would overlook the advertisements. Again, they were right. Not only that, the ads were so brilliant the straight community only perceived the straight version. Think of it as a code hidden within the message, the code was only translated by the gay community, due to the ignorance of the straight community. For example: “Get Out. And Stay Out” It could refer to venturing into the outdoors in a Subaru—or coming out as gay. “It’s Not a Choice. It’s the Way We’re Built” this could refer to either Subaru’s standard all-wheel-drive or its association with LGBT identity. The cloak and dagger spy game of deciphering the ads was a big win for the marketing team, more than they could have anticipated. This was not the first time in history, but people’s ignorance became an ally and a benefit to a company. The gay community was loving the ads, decoding the messages, and how the straight community would only see what they wanted or trained to see. In one famous reference Subaru showed a Subaru Forester with the license plate “Xena LVR” a call out to the mega hit show Xena: Warrior Princess, a show loved by everyone and a show where the two female protagonists seemed to be in love with each other. The straight community only saw the kayak or bike rack completely overlooking the license plate or if they did see it would take it as, “nice, I love Xena too.” Executives being executives are an apprehensive group and felt uncertain about the decoding or how the straight community might feel and then retaliate after having the wool pulled from their eyes and not trusting Subaru once this all came to light. Two major contributions put that fear into a dormant state. One of them being Subaru’s other ad campaign, a more general, feel good, hitting all ways of life campaign with legendary and charismatic actor Paul Hogan with his extremely successful Outback commercials reprising his Crocodile Dundee character. The second contribution and the more surprising one of the two was the research done by Paul Poux. Paul was the brains and the creator behind the brilliant license plate ad campaigns. His team would create focus groups of straight people and talk about gay issues, show them pictures and ads featuring gay couples for at least an hour. Afterward the team would show the group some campaigns Subaru was thinking of placing in potential media spaces, the audience could not depchiper the message and some even thought that the photo of the two men shopping were either a buddy or an uncle. This was all the Exes needed to not to be concerned anymore.

Subaru may have been a sly fox in the ad world but in the global perspective it was anything but that, it was not subtle with its support of gay and lesbian customers. Along with Paul Hogan, Subaru was able to hire superstar tennis legend and well-known lesbian Martina Navratilova as the face of a car company. Martina was known for her wins on and off the court in the LGBTQ+ community, Subaru honored and recognized this which brought much respect and grace as her ads were deeply touching, and full of emotion. In addition to Martina Subaru has openly sponsors gay pride parades and has become the founding sponsor the Rainbow Endowment. The Rainbow Endowment card is a credit card company that offers donations to gay and lesbian causes instead or cash back or miles.

Pictured: Martina Navratilova

Now Subaru was not the first company to market or to advertise to the gay or lesbian community. What they did though versus other companies was make it very transparent and known that they were for the entire gay and lesbian community. Other companies would market to the ideal, well known, and profitable upper class white gay community, overlooking or ignoring the gay people of color or those in need of medical treatment due to HIV/AIDS and unable to afford it. Subaru with its partnership with the Rainbow Card has generated millions of dollars in charitable contributions to nonprofit beneficiary groups serving the LGBTQ+ community and HIV/AIDS research.

The gamble paid off, the marketing campaign was a huge win and translated into financial success. Just to be clear this campaign alone did not save Subaru. They had about five other campaigns going on at the same time but this was the one that received the most attention, profit, and rejuvenated the spotlight and loyalty it needed from its customers. Subaru has become an iconic brand within the LGBTQ+ community, celebrated both for its beloved vehicles and its status as one of their favorite companies. The parent company Fuji Heavy Industries, a massive conglomerate rebranded the entire company under the Subaru name due to the company’s surging popularity and respect from the community. Other companies have also taken notice and have followed in Subaru’s footsteps sponsoring and partnering with the LGBTQ+ and other overlooked communities.

Subaru became the company Saturn wanted to be or was trying to be. But Subaru is more than just a car company, yes it makes cars, incredible and amazing cars that dominate in rallies across the world, or serve ER doctors in rural areas, or get you and your family to and from the beach safely. They are a company that helps, that protects, that goes out of its way to assure that you will have a voice even if it is through them. They are not concerned or worried about being different, because they are, and they want you to be loved and feel secure with who you are or who you are not. Next time you are in the market for a car, think beyond your own profit or gain, think if I get this who benefits outside of the company? Leave your ego and grab a Subaru.