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. In the 1990s, Subaru’s unique selling point was that the company increasingly made all-wheel drive standard on all its cars. Rather than fight larger car companies over the same demographic of white, 18-to-35-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.
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. That was the question faced by Subaru of America executives in the 1990s.
How do you advertise a car that journalists describe as “sturdy, if drab”?
