How Subaru Targeted Lesbians And Revolutionized Advertising

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One Subaru ad featured a car with a license plate reading "Xena lvr," while another read, "Get Out. And Stay Out."

(Justin Sullivan/News/Getty Images)

Tired of hearing jokes about lesbians who love their Subarus? Blame Subaru.

In an article published on Monday, Priceonomics explained that the stereotype is rooted in a decades-old decision to target gay women in ad campaigns.

In the 1990s, Subaru identified four groups of people willing to pay premium for the all-wheel-drive cars: teachers and educators, healthcare professionals, IT professionals and "rugged individualists" (outdoorsy types).

Then Subaru discovered a fifth: lesbians. Priceonomics spoke to Tim Bennett, who worked as Director of Advertising for Subaru, about the discovery:

"When we did the research, we found pockets of the country like Northampton, Massachusetts, and Portland, Oregon, where the head of the household would be a single person--and often a women," says Bennett. When Subaru marketers talked to these customers, they realized these women buying Subarus were lesbian.

"There was such an alignment of feeling, like [Subaru cars] fit with what they did," says Paul Poux, who later conducted focus groups for Subaru. The marketers found that lesbian Subaru owners liked that the cars were good for outdoor trips, and that they were good for hauling stuff without being as large as a truck or SUV. (In a line some women may not like as much, marketers also said Subaru's dependability was a good fit for lesbians since they didn't have a man who could fix car problems.) "They felt it fit them and wasn't too flashy," says Poux.

So Subaru targeted those women with ads containing coded messages that would be a hit with the gay community but would likely be missed by straight people. For instance, one ad featured a Subaru with a license plate reading "Xena lvr." (That's a reference to "Xena: Warrior Princess," whose female protagonists appeared to be gay.)

Remember, these were the '90s, back when gay causes seemed to be on the losing side of the culture war, as the article points out. The Clinton Administration had passed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and Congress had passed the Defense of Marriage Act.

So Subaru continued to use taglines with double meanings:

"Get Out. And Stay Out" could refer to exploring the outdoors in a Subaru--or coming out as gay. "It's Not a Choice. It's the Way We're Built" could refer to all Subarus coming with all-wheel-drive--or LGBT identity.

As Subaru continued to target niche markets, including gay women, its bet paid off, transforming the company's flat sales into steady growth.

And while Priceonomics notes that Subaru wasn't the first company to create ads for gay consumers, it was the first large company in America to do so transparently and consistently.

Read the whole story here.

-- Anna Marum

[email protected]@annamarum