WHERE SUCCESSFUL ADVERTISING MEETS LGBT EQUALITY

Fuji Heavy Industries, A Window Where One Ought To Be

Members:

This ad takes a cue from Faye Dunaway in "Mommy Dearest," with the line, "Put a window where it ought to be," meaning a sunroof.

Others in the campaign are also inspired by famous movie lines.

"The gay community has a sense of ownership of literature and films," explains John Nash, who has been the creative director for Subaru's gay ads since the beginning, first for the defunct Mulryan/Nash Advertising, and now for Moon City Productions. "We thought that it would be fun to casually and thoughtfully align movie lines with the cars."

The campaign ran in gay titles as well as Movieline magazine, which reaches over 500,000 readers and brought the gay-targeted ads back into mainstream media. While companies regularly run mainstream ads in gay media, they rarely run gay-targeted ads in the mainstream, since the expense is greater and there is risk of turning off other consumers.

One of the few marketers to do its own research into the gay market, the car company found, lo and behold, that lesbians love Subarus! So it entered the market in May 1997 and remains one of the few major companies to target gay women.

The company's print ads have expanded over the years to feature Subaru models sporting license plates with phrases like "XENA LVR," a play on the popularity among lesbians of the show "Xena, Warrior Princess," and "P-TOWN," a reference to Provincetown, the popular tourist destination for lesbians and gay men. The ads were also featured on billboards around the country.

Long snubbed by advertisers that would have otherwise seized the tennis star at her height of stardom, Martina Navratilova was finally embraced by Subaru of America after the company spent several years courting the lesbian market.

The TV spot includes Martina among other female athletes with the "What Do I Know?" theme. The spot includes Golfers Juli Inkster, Meg Mallon and Olympic skier Diann Roffe-Steinrotter.

Each asks "what do I know" about performance, control, grip, etc. Martina gets the last word in, asking "What do we know? We're just girls."

Navratilova won more tournaments (167) than any other player in history, male or female, and yet most advertisers were fearful of being endorsed by an open lesbian. She did have brief appearances for Apple Computer and The New York Times.

Navratilova’s only regret is that it didn’t happen while she was still playing. “If I had been quiet about it, I would have had ads long before this,” she said. “It is a fact.” In an interview with The New York Times, she said, "All most other advertisers could see was the fact I'm a lesbian. Subaru doesn't care. They see me as everything I am."

Industry
Media Outlet
Region
AdRespect Themes
User Comments
Nothing here - be the first to comment!