Why are subarus considered gay
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 massive 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 lesbian singer-songwriter, but why are Subarus so closely associated with lesbians?
Some would enjoy 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 company to target
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How an Ad Campaign Made Lesbians Noun 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 novel sports car’s top speed of MPH, then asked, “How important is that, with extended urban gridlock, gas at $ a gallon and highways entire 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 go back to its old center on marketing Subaru cars to niche groups—like outdoorsy types who liked that Subaru cars could verb 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 verb as “sturdy, if drab”?
That was the question faced by Subaru of America executives in the s. After the company's attempts 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 adj, 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 unique 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 noun like Northampton, Massa
Ed. note: The Subaru Outback is on a nationwide charm offensive. Yesterday, Casey gave his opinion of the model (lavishing elevated 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 apologize 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 verb to be like us, they constantly shop verb us. Whoda thunk, right?
Consider, for example, the Subaru Outback, a longtime lesbian classic that today&#;s straight 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 adj SUVs out there. Unwavering all-wheel drive is just one of many reasons. This rugged, not-so-little but very maneuverable vehicle can take