Fueling the world’s fastest growing automotive brand in Asia

Subaru Asia

It may be the fastest growing automotive brand in the world, but Subaru in Southeast Asia was not on the radar of most consumers. Glenn Tan, the visionary young CEO of Motor Image Group, the exclusive Subaru distributor in the region, came to Cibo with a simple task: relaunch the Subaru brand in 9 countries and sell more cars. As the company’s brand experience agency of record, we’ve spent the last two years doing just that.

When I heard Cibo talk about the experience being the brand, I knew they could help me differentiate Subaru in Asia across advertising, dealer, and digital experiences.

Glenn Tan

CEO

Customer Research
Market Research
Brand Experience Strategy
Advertising

What We Did

We began our Brand Experience Strategy process by digging deep—a multi-week ethnographic-style research project across multiple countries to understand how Subaru owners and affinity-minded consumers thought about the world and about their cars. The rich consumer insights resulting from this research drove the creation of a new brand platform that could be translated to every aspect of the Subaru experience in the region.

What We Found

Definitions of success are changing in Asia.
Subaru affinity correlates with independent thinking.
Social pressures create a different sort of rebellion.
Cars play heavily into self-image and status.
Subaru was seen as technology forward.

Borrowing from a unique heritage

In a word: unstoppable

With a society full of conventions and rife with unspoken behavioral norms, Subaru customers are quietly, sometimes privately rebellious. They are the mavericks, the independent thinkers, the ambitious and the self-directed. They are unstoppable, a word that became the core of the new internal brand architecture. As an outward facing concept, unstoppable translates into All Heart, the soul of Subaru Asia’s brand campaign.

Telling the All Heart story

Articulating the meaning and impact of All Heart as a brand concept internally first took the form of a manifesto connecting the heritage of the brand, the consumer insight and the vision of its CEO.

BRAND EXPRESSION DEEP DIVE

Connecting with the emotion of All Heart

We also developed a script and video concept that dramatized the concept of All Heart to further deepen and reinforce its relevance, value and spirit. While we can’t show you the video, you can eavesdrop on it.

GETTING UNDER THE HOOD

The beating heart of technology

Subaru believes in creating the world's safest cars, and their customers have begun to recognize this. To better tell this story we created a Core Technology Campaign to run in conjunction with our brand and model efforts. The campaign highlights key elements of Subaru Core Technology, including Symmetrical AWD, the Boxer Engine, the new Global Platform and EyeSight®, showing how each are unique in the automotive world today.

THE HEART OF FORESTER

Is there anything  you can’t do?

The everyday hero that is All Heart provided the basis for our first car-model advertising campaigns. Subaru initially asked us to focus on the family-oriented Forester SUV, for which we developed the campaign tagline “Is there anything you can’t do?” and a series of television spots focusing on the small-time heroes in life. For more information on these campaigns, check out our Subaru Advertising case study.

RESTART DEEP DIVE

A foundation for growth.

Establishing a coherent and compelling brand platform provided us a strong foundation on which to build out the entire Subaru Asia brand experience. From broadcast TV advertising to dealer signage, billboards to magazine and newspaper advertisements, we continue to elevate the brand to greater prominence and sales success. Learn more about our advertising work for Subaru Asia.

Core-Tech Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive

Core-Tech EyeSight

Wherever you are in your journey, get in touch. We’ll discuss where you’re at today and create a plan to deliver a customer experience that will transform your business.

Salesforce

Lenovo