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Note: This episode originally aired on 2016.
In the early 1990s, Subaru was in trouble. Subaru’s cars were OK, and they performed OK. But sales had been sluggish for years. Subaru faced competition from giants like Toyota and Nissan. And it was losing. It needed a way to stand out.
Subaru first hired a new advertising agency to determine who Was Subaru sales were growing. The ad agency went to a Subaru sales hotspot: Northampton, Massachusetts. A group of Subaru owners filed into a small room in a shopping mall to answer a few questions, and the researchers noticed one thing right away. They were all women, and many of them identified as lesbians.
It was not a time of tolerance for LGBT Americans. It was a time of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” A few years later, Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, prohibiting same-sex couples from being identified as spouses. Yet Subaru executives approved advertising aimed at lesbian consumers. They did it in a very precise, clever way that became the template for many of the ad campaigns you see today…if you know how to look for them.
music: “Nothing” and”Evergreen High School.“
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