Love, it's what makes a Subaru ad a Subaru ad

Saturday, April 27, 2013
Since Subaru's catchphrase is, "Love, it's what makes a Subaru a Subaru," they need to show that their cars are friendly to every family that rides in them.  From five seconds into the video and then on, all the ad focuses on is family, family, family.  

This ad mainly focuses on two different appeals; the need to nurture and the need to feel safe.  The overarching appeal throughout the entire video is the need to nurture.  During the ad, the narrator says that the backseat is, "The place we trust to hold our most precious cargo."  As he is saying this, there is a baby being set into its car seat.  Seeing a baby appeals to our maternal or paternal instincts.  Since are parental instincts make us care about our children's safety, we want the most safe mode of transportation for our children.  Our parental instincts also feed into our, and our children's, need to feel safe.  Since the 2014 Subaru Forester is an IIHS top-safety pick, if you want your children to be safe, apparently the Subaru Forester is for you.     

In this ad, Subaru uses Pathos by connecting to the audience by appealing to what we hold dear; our children, pets and relatives.  In this ad, Subaru focused on the backseat, showing that they care not only about the driver but about who are the passengers.  Most of the time, the children sit in the back seat and, with this ad, Subaru is connecting to the audience by presenting the idea that both Subaru and parents share a common goal; keeping their children safe.  Throughout the video, there are many scenes of what goes on in the back seat; from sleeping to throwing hats out the window.  We can all connect to the people in this ad because they are all far from perfect.  Just like us, they make mistakes and stick their tongue out at each other.  Since the people are not perfect, we can associate with these people and feel "at home," in this ad.  Whatever the circumstance, the ad demonstrates, your passengers will always be safe on board the Forester.  

Just like in the Dove commercial, in every shot in the back seat, the camera is not completely still.  You can see the picture shaking as if there was a non-perfect human taking the video.  Since this ad is geared towards families, Subaru tries to imitate home videos as it filmed this ad.  The people filmed in this video act just like people we all know.  There are the troublemakers, the grannies and the parents trying to control their kids.  Looking at this video, I realized that I have actually done things in the video like "accidentally" throwing something out the window.  

I noticed, just as in the Dove commercial, the sun had bleached the video for a second or two.  I am assuming that the reason they do it is to give the home-video sense and make us feel that this ad was not staged with actors, special lighting and a director.  The sun bleaching the video, at least for me, gave me the sense that the video was "raw," in a sense, or at least unaltered.  The imperfectness that was illustrated by the shaky video and the sun bleaching the image, made me think that the Subaru people are just ordinary people who care about the same things I care about.

Throughout the video, there is a piano and violin playing in the background as clips of kids, grandmas and babies sit in the back seat.  The peaceful sound of the music is associated with the feeling the you will get when you sit in the back of the Subaru Forester.  It is completely safe, as demonstrated by the music that is playing in the background.  Then, when the announcer announces the all-new Subaru Forester, drums enter the music and the sound increases.  All of a sudden, you here what sounds like trumpets in the background as if saluting the Subaru Forester.  They are always going to come out with new cars, they just have to figure out how to sell them.  The increasing music gets you all pumped up about the "responsibly built, completely restyled, Subaru Forester."  They are hoping that you will feel so great about the car, that you go out and buy one.  

Although the announcer says that the Subaru Forester is "completely remodeled," to my knowledge, they didn't show any restyling of the car, just people having fun in the back seat.  Maybe the people watching the ad won't notice and will just take Subaru at their word.

This ad, as with almost all Subaru ads, was about family and how, in a Subaru, your family is completely safe.  And no Subaru ad would be complete without their signature slogan:

"Love, its what makes a Subaru a Subaru."