Objectives

Subaru of America is dedicated to being more than just a car company and dedicates resources to making the world a better place through the causes that matter to its consumer base, such as protecting the environment and ensuring pet safety—both in its manufacturing and beyond in the lives of its customers with a variety of partner organizations. The Subaru Love Promise (the brand’s mission to show love and respect to all people at every interaction with Subaru) is part of this brand philosophy and brought to life annually through the Subaru Share the Love Event (STLE). After more than a decade running this campaign, Subaru sought to breathe new life into the Promise by engaging new consumers to generate $170 million in total donations to partner charities, and maintain the automaker’s 61.5% loyalty rate while driving awareness of the values owners’ place on giving back to others.

Strategy and Execution

Subaru planned the 2019 Share the Love Event to run from November through January, to coincide with a time of year known for giving back to others and maximize the spirit and ensure the impact reached beyond the campaign timing. We created a multi-discipline, integrated Share the Love Event campaign to bring the impact and the charities to life (advertising, social media, PR, in-retailer promotion and out-of-home). Lastly, we enabled donation amounts to remain open by allowing unlimited donation amounts from Subaru to its charitable partners, ensuring an unlimited amount of donations can be brought in and increase the overall impact to charities.

Subaru researched the most appealing causes to their owners to identify the chartable partners, so the current societal needs represented the best opportunity to drive participation among their customer base. Each of the charity partners’ respective focus aligns with the causes that Subaru drivers care most about: helping pets find loving homes (Subaru owners index highly as dog owners and specifically more than 60 percent of Subaru owners have a dog), preserving the environment, giving back to local communities and helping those in need.

We implemented several tactics to achieve our overall goal.

1. Launched a series of advertising spots that authentically highlighted the work of the four charitable partners
2. Engaged local charitable beneficiaries to host offline events, including the Food Bank of South Jersey for the Subaru HQ kickoff event in Camden, NJ
3. Tapped employees to participate in the giving experience; hundreds of Subaru employees (with President and CEO Tom Doll,) packed and donated weekend meals for local kids, who might not have access to meals when they aren’t in school
4. Executed targeted media integrations through broadcast, digital and streaming platforms, including ABC’s Good Morning America, Science Vs podcast, Hulu, Roku, YouTube
5. Subaru focused all media spend around the causes being impacted, rather than focusing on vehicles
6. Earned media tactics used in promotional efforts included STLE key message development, news announcements (ad campaign, STLE), video asset creation, widespread media outreach
7. Provided retailers with PR kits containing social media and PR templates, to provide retailers tools to support their own local charity events/hometown support

Results

Subaru surpassed its campaign donation goals for the 2019-20 event season and donated more than $175 million to over 1,170 national and local charity partners over the last 12 years. When combined with participating Subaru retailer donations, the 2019 STLE total reached $30.4 million in charitable donations.

1. 1. STLE offline event surpassed participation goal for employees and media attendance
   2. Set record-breaking donation of 15,000 ‘KidzPacks’ to supply the food bank’s weekend meal program for an entire school year, which is the equivalent of 60,000 meals.
      1. KidzPack program provides four nutritionally balanced meals to more than 750 local Camden, NJ children to sustain them over the weekend, so they won’t have to worry about where they will get their next meal.
   3. Each of the strategic charities saw donations that exceeded campaign goals:
      1. Over 100 national parks protected (through National Parks Foundation)
      2. More than 57,000 animals rescued (through ASPCA)
      3. Nearly 2.2 million meals delivered (through Meals on Wheels America)
      4. Over 2,200 wishes granted (through Make-A-Wish)
   4. Overall media efforts resulted in 2,826,559 impressions with 100% positive sentiment

Media