How Subaru increased consideration and changed brand perceptions with a 10 week, cross-platform newsbrand campaign.

1. Subaru:
Outback Extreme Review
Best Newsbrands Campaign
Executive Summary:
When launching a new vehicle, reviews are vitally important. Subaru Outback owners
love their vehicles but it was receiving poor reviews as it was being reviewed on all
the wrong criteria – this is a SUV for the country, not the city. We worked with The
Telegraph and ‘The Stig’ to review the Outback on things that matter most to its
drivers, creating ‘The Extreme Review’, there was a 300% increase in sales and we
changed readers’ opinion of the brand.
Background and objectives: Launch the new Outback in a competitive market
Subaru faced a number of challenges when launching the new Outback, we quickly
established that a straight display campaign would be insufficient to launch this model as we
faced some big challenges:
1. We were launching into a highly cluttered SUV market as a challenger brand
3. Awareness was high (82% for Subaru) but consideration was low (3%): this is a
legacy from the 90’s with Subaru regarded, by those who don’t own them, as rally
cars for boy racers
Objectives: We had an ambitious sales target:
1. Drive web traffic
2. Increase consideration for the Subaru Outback, with a softer metric in changing
perception of the Subaru brand
Insight: Subaru fits in with my lifestyle
Mainstream automotive press is highly influential but generally score Subaru poorly when
awarding star ratings, due to the weighting of judging criteria on mass market considerations
such as fuel efficiency. Our insight however was that Subaru owners do consider their
Subaru a 5 star vehicle; it fits their lifestyle perfectly - their Subaru is a car which facilitates
an active outdoor lifestyle that is more rurally rooted
Therefore we needed to re-look at the way the vehicles are reviewed. The consequent
strategy looked to generate an ‘Extreme Review’, with the Outback reviewed on its own
terms and against criteria important to a Subaru driver.

2. Audience: the Outback target audience is rural living with a need for an all-wheel drive
vehicle. They are upmarket 45+ males that liked premium quality goods and had a keen
interest in technology.
We wanted to review the Subaru Outback on terms that best reflected its use – forget City
living and fuel efficiency, how does it deal with the countryside?
The Plan: See Subaru Differently
The Telegraph reached our older, upmarket audience (index needed) but more importantly
the trusted editorial platform we needed to drive consideration and change perception.
Importantly, they gave access to respected talent in ‘The Stig’ – Ben Collins; a fantastic
independent voice.
Teaming up with the Daily Telegraph content and commercial teams, we embarked on a 10
week cross platform campaign which reviewed the new Outback on its own terms:
 Videos: fronted by former TopGear ‘Stig’ Ben Collins, at the heart of the campaign
was a series of 3 long form content videos that pushed the car and highlighted some
of its key features (filmed in a stunning location in Scotland). These were housed in a
hub along with additional content to help showcase the vehicle in all its glory.
 Print: 4-page wrap of the Weekend section launched the campaign, followed up by
high impact print display across the campaign targeting multiple sections i.e. motors,
supplements, and front half. The different sections allowed us to run educational and
lifestyle pieces which highlighted the core attributes of the vehicle
 Digital: engaging high impact display formats focused on driving video views across
digital platforms (desktop, mobile and tablet) – encapsulated by media first, Content
Blast on the Telegraph homepage. All underpinned with standard display and native
placements to deliver users to the campaign hub
 Social: social pushes throughout including a paid Twitter campaign. This combined
with Ben Collin’s Tweets to his actively engaged audience
Results:
 Sales: 92% of target sold, representing a 300% increase in sales YoY
o Selling out of the top-spec models which were heavily featured on the videos
 Post-campaign research amongst Telegraph readers:
o Raised my opinion of Subaru (+122%)
o Made me think differently of Subaru (+111%)
o Encouraged to find out more about the Outback (+190%)
 Web visits: Subaru.co.uk/outback traffic increased by 600% at launch and more
than doubled for the rest of the campaign YoY. Considering driving people to the
Telegraph content hub was fundamental to the campaign, this was a welcome bonus

3. Client View:
“The content campaign we undertook with the Telegraph provided the core marketing
platform behind one of our most successful product launches of the past few years. With rich
and engaging content at the heart of the campaign, we were able to demonstrate just what
makes a Subaru "unlike any other car" in a way that felt more like a Top Gear filmic review
than standard automotive appraisal across almost every available Telegraph channel. It
achieved one of our core campaign KPI’s, changing people’s perception of Subaru positively
by 58% - key to longer term brand ambitions – and on top of this delivered an
unprecedented campaign engagement which drove 185,000 unique users to the campaign
hub. Dealer footfall increased across the campaign period with new leads coming into the
dealerships across the United Kingdom armed with a copy of the Telegraph asking to see
the specific features of the Subaru Outback covered in action as part of the test drive!”
Bianca DeBono, Group Marketing Communications Manager