People have different preferences when purchasing a vehicle. Some may want the fastest car on the road, others may want the most comfortable ride, and some may desire the vehicle with the best safety features. The third group often includes families and this is the group Subaru primarily targets with its “They Lived” ad .

The ad primarily relies on the powerful imagery of Subaru cars destroyed beyond recognition in accidents that everyone who sees it assumes the passengers must have died. But the informed actors remind them that the passengers ‘lived’ which speaks volume about the safety features of Subaru’s cars. In other words, Subaru attempts to convince the targeted consumers that safety is one of Subaru’s defining characteristics and consumers can rely on Subaru’s cars to protect them even in the face of extremely serious car accidents. Subaru almost makes no efforts at emphasizing other characteristics such as speed and looks because it understands that safety is arguably most important to families.

The ad employs a number of rhetorical tools to influence the audience such as the use of ethos, pathos, and logos. The tool the ad relies upon most is pathos whether negative or positive emotions. When the uninformed actors look at crushed cars, one can sense the sadness on their face which is hinting at the fact that all lives are precious and even if a stranger dies, people tend to feel sad. Similarly, people tend to feel a sense of relief when lives are saved even if they don’t know the other person as the informed actors often smile while mentioning the fact that passengers ‘lived’. The ad also attempts to emotionally influence the audience by showing a family in the end in which the father admiringly looks at the car, taking comfort in the thought that his family is well-protected against potential car accidents.

Subaru also employs ethos as the company attempts to build credibility with the audience by mentioning at the end of the ad that five of its vehicles have top ratings from IIHS or Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The fact that IIHS has issued top ratings to five vehicles from Subaru can also be understood as use of logos because it is a fact that is independently verifiable.

The ad is an attempt by Subaru to lessen competitive pressure and also strengthen brand loyalty. Subaru is attempting to give targeted consumers such as families a major reason why it should be trusted over the competition because life is priceless. In order to emphasize the reliability of its safety technologies, it is even willing to display images that may be disturbing to some but that, nevertheless, constitute a bold claim.

It could be reasonably argued that Subaru is not advertising its vehicles but advertising safety. The whole theme of the ad is ‘safety’ since almost no attempt is made to highlight any other features of Subaru’s vehicles. The audience is not even given a glimpse of the car’s interior which is quite common in car commercials so as not to distract them from the primary message.

Subaru may have targeted families but it is also possible that the company hopes families will not only buy Subaru for their own use but also gift them to their children when they leave home such as for college. Subaru may be learning lessons from Volvo’s book that having a distinguishing trait results in more loyal customers and the result is even more favorable when the trait is extremely important to the targeted audience.