Responses by Randy Hughes, executive creative director, Carmichael Lynch
Background: Subaru’s long running Love campaign has grown into a corporate philosophy, the Love Promise that guides the company’s decisions and actions. The Subaru Love Promise is broken down into five areas of philanthropy, one being Subaru Loves the Earth. So when the California wildfires started devastating the nearby forests, Subaru saw an opportunity to help give back. Through the Subaru Forester Re-Foresting Project, Subaru and its retailers partnered with the National Forest Foundation to help replant 500,000 new trees in areas affected by the California wildfires.
Reasoning: While we were working on the launch of the Subaru Forester, we came up with the idea of connecting the car with the devastated forests. It seemed like a way to get the name of the vehicle out and, more importantly, it felt like an area where the brand could make an impact and live its promise.
Challenges: Making sure that the brand was authentically connected to this effort. An organic connection was born when we found Stuart Palley, the photojournalist who documented these fires, who also happened to be a Subaru owner. His dramatic and heartbreaking images of the burning forests in the one-minute spot show just how much help our nation’s forests truly need.
Favorite details: That this wasn’t an ask or an assignment. It was a great idea that felt right for the brand, and to Subaru’s ongoing credit, the brand saw the power in that idea and figured out a way to make it happen.
Visual influences: The power of the photography that brought the real devastation to life so tangibly.
Anything new: We learned that seedling trees have to be planted by experts in very small windows of time during specific atmospheric conditions.
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