Gay Advertisg’s Long March Out of the Closet

HOW SUBA SAVED SELF BY MARKETG TO THE GAY MUNY

NPR's Pla Money podst looks at how Suba began marketg to the gay and lbian muny, and how helped turn around the pany the '90s. * subaru gay ads 90s *

A Democratic print had jt passed “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, and after IKEA aired one of the first major ad mpaigns pictg a gay uple, someone had lled a bomb threat on an IKEA store. It was such an unual cisn—and such a succs—that phed gay and lbian advertisg om the g to the mastream.

It’s that Suba cultivated s image as a r for lbians—and did so at a time when few pani would embrace or even acknowledge their gay ctomers.

“The women were practilly mercials for Suba, ” John Nash, the creative director of the ad agency that ultimately ma Suba’s gay and lbian advertisements, relled 2004. Gay seemed to be on the losg si of the culture war: the Clton Admistratn had jt created s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regardg homosexualy the ary, and 1996, Congrs would pass the Defense of Marriage Act. Mastream movi and TV shows wh gay characters—like Will & Grace—were still a few years away, and few celebri were openly gay.

GAY-FRIENDLY CARS: IS SUBA NUMBER ONE?

When Ellen Degener beme a rare exceptn 1997, and her character the show Ellen me out as gay an episo of the s, many pani pulled their ads.

When a 1994 IKEA ad featured a gay uple, the Amerin Fay Associatn mounted boytts, and someone lled a (fake) bomb threat on an IKEA store. Today, this IKEA ad of a gay uple shoppg for a dg room table seems mundane. In the 1990s, Poux worked at Mulryan/Nash, an agency that specialized the gay market.

ARE SUBAS REALLY GAY RS?

“All the l of marketg went out the wdow at this fear” of marketg to gays and lbians, he says. When one Suba ad man, Tim Mahoney, proposed the gay-targetg ads talks wh Japane executiv, the executiv hurriedly looked up “gay” their dictnari. Bent rells holdg pany meetgs wh nam along the l of “Who Are Gays and Lbians?