Subaru: Strong Company Actively Pursuing LGBTQ Drivers

Aka … Lesbian Subaru Lovers! I didn’t make that up. There are a few affectionate phrases for Lesbian Subaru drivers including that one and the “Lezbaru”.

Subaru can be divisive company, mainly if you live with someone from the Big Three who has a “no foreign cars” bumper sticker. As long as you’re not trying to park in a UAW parking lot, the cars do the job just fine. They’ve got another reason to be proud of their company position, however.

One of the few companies to research the demographics of the gay market, Subaru found that self-identified lesbians proclaimed their love for Subaru in droves. In May 1997, it jumped into the market and is still a lonesome player of companies who target gay women.

The ad, a product shot of the Subaru Outback, features the headline, “Likes to be driven hard. And put away wet.” The ad naturally refers to the durability of the vehicle and clearly references nothing else or is any way sexual. This ad debuted in mainstream Vanity Fair but also is to run in gay titles such as The Advocate and Out.

Others in the campaign include the copy, “Makes your heart throb, your pulse race, and even takes you out to breakfast” — echoing an earlier Subaru effort. In the third ad, a back-end shot of the Subaru Forrester is paired with copy that states, “Good manners. Great personality. And a rear that just won’t quit.”

While I applaud Subaru for their pro-lesbian bent, my own crushes with the lesbians I meet in my life has made me more frustrated thanks to Subaru stupid sexiness. Maybe that’s why I usually prefer Ford. At least with them I know I have a chance.

Setting aside my inability to find a stable relationship, which just makes my current leasing of a GM car even more ironically delicious, Subaru not only started marketing to the lesbian market, they managed to do so in the 1990’s, when gay jokes and anti-gay sentiment were much stronger.

Though the shift to more open acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community was well underway in the ‘90’s, there was still a lot of pushback, disdain, and open mockery of the community as well. As an older Millennial, witnessing the shift from the mockery and snide remarks towards the community on massive hits like Friends, to the openness of the community witnessed in the modern era, is both jarring and heartening to witness.

This makes the early, groundbreaking marketing of Subaru all the more striking. At the early stages of the shift, when they were sure to receive backlash not just from those dedicated to opposing the LGBTQ+ community, but even casuals who were not as open minded yet as times changed. The companies daring foray into marketing toward an aspect of the community’s demographic before such marketing was more widely accepted is truly a laudable effort.

Setting aside my crushes on lesbians and the sexy Subaru, I also applaud Subaru for their forward thinking marketing before it was socially acceptable. As both a decent car company and a forward thinking marketer to part of the LGBTQ+ community, Subaru is to be lauded and their cars not thought of as sexy, because that’s weird.