In 2014, Japanese automobile gargantuan Subaru relied on special effects and bizarre super-sized monsters from popular manga series Attack on Titan to advertise the company’s compact crossover five-door SUV, the Forester. Six years later, the automaker didn’t need to rely on fiction to showcase the Forester’s hardiness in the face of extreme situations. Instead, it relied on the real-life dread of California’s wildfires.
In a new 60-second spot produced by Carmichael Lynch, Subaru’s longtime creative agency of record, devastating and dramatic footage flames engulfing the West Coast shot by photojournalist Stuart Palley portray the chaos of the ecological catastrophe, and the associated dangers of documenting them. The last work promoting the Forester produced by the the Minneapolis-based agency for Subaru was a series of three short vignettes—which also veer into the horror genre—showing sequences of parents imagining their children getting into grim car crashes in their Foresters but luckily, remaining unscathed.
The latest Forester commercial, on the other hand, does not provide escapism from tragedy—but does offer hope. Palley, a Southern California native and a trained wildland firefighter, is seen driving and stepping out of his Subaru as the landscape around him is entirely ablaze. The terrifying visuals then cut to a Subaru Forester driving in the aftermath, announcing the Subaru Forester Re-Foresting Project initiative, which will use a fleet of Foresters to plant 125,000 trees per year through 2023. The project is kicking off this year through the broader Subaru Love Promise, a partnership between the automaker and the National Forest Foundation to help replant 500,000 new trees in the areas recently devastated by California wildfires.
CLIENT: SOA
Senior Vice President, Marketing: Alan Bethke
National Advertising Manager: Brian Cavallucci
Advertising Production Specialist – Brand: Kirsten Anderson
AGENCY:
Agency: Carmichael Lynch
Chief Creative Officer: Marty Senn
Executive Creative Director, Senior Partner: Randy Hughes
Writer/Group Creative Director: Dean Buckhorn
Art Director/Creative Director: Brad Harrison
Head of Production: Orlee Tatarka
Senior Executive Content Producer, Partner: Brynn Hausmann
Senior Content Producer: Melissa Butts
Director of Business Affairs: Vicki Oachs
Talent Payments: Jennifer Knutson
Managing Director: Brad Williams
Account Director: Amy Jo Preisler
Account Supervisor: Kendra Komejan Young
Senior Project Manager: Danielle Kurtz
Executive Planning Director: Meagan Pagliara
Media: Jenn Kern, Betsy Burgeson, Megan McGrath
PRODUCTION:
Production Company: Storyform Inc.
Producer: Anke Thommen
Director: Dana Christiaansen
POST PRODUCTION:
Edit House: Final Cut NY
Editor: JD Smyth
Assistant Editor: Chris Rizzo
Head of Production/Producer: Penny Ensley
EP: Sarah Roebuck
VFX House: Significant Others NY
Creative Director/Lead VFX Artist: Dirk Greene
VFX Artist: Nicholas Renaudeau
GFX/Motion Graphics Artist: Phil Brooks
VFX Producers: Alek Rost, Kyra Hendricks
Mix: Machine NY
Sound Design/Audio Mix: T. Terressa Tate
Audio Assistant: Amanda Fuentes
Audio Producers: Alek Rost, Kyra Hendricks
Telecine: Color Collective
Colorist: Mike Howell
Color Assistant: Alex Jimenez
Color EP: Claudia Guevara
MUSIC:
Track name and artist: Subaru Forester Shift To Hope Machine, Writer(s) / Composer(s): Eleni Hassabis
Music Company: Machine UK
EP: Matej Oreskovic
TALENT:
“2020 Re-Foresting”
On-Camera Talent: Stuart Palley
Voiceover Talent: Samantha Lemole
