ohmidog!

Subaru plans to eschew the Super Bowl again this year, running its new “Dog Tested, Dog Approved” commercials during the Puppy Bowl instead.

It’s the same approach the car company took last year, aiming its marketing at dog owners, as opposed to football fans. That’s a teaser from one of the new ads above.

According to the manufacturer, Subaru drivers are two times more likely than the average car owner to have a pet.

In addition to showing its ad during Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl IX, Subaru is unveiling a new Facebook application that, among other things, pairs a dog’s breed with the appropriate model of Subaru. Dog owners can enter their dogs breed, weight, and lifestyle and the “Matchmaker” will identify a fitting car model for the dog.

(To see all our “Woof in Advertising” posts, click here.)

Subaru has done it again.

This heartwarming commercial follows a young man over the years, making the point that, whatever else might change, his two most loyal companions do not — his chocolate Lab and his Subaru.

There’s something about seeing the Lab go from a pup to a grey-muzzled senior that reminds us of the true meaning of loyalty, and might even make some of us tear up.

Of course, a car’s not really capable of loyalty. But we humans are.

So Subaru — doing it well and doing it often — continues in its advertising  to seize upon what’s probably the best symbol for loyalty there is: the dog.

And more often than not, it works.

To see all of our “Woof in Advertising” posts, click here.

Subaru isn’t suggesting you avoid the Super Bowl entirely — even though, as an advertiser, it is — it’s just that they want to make sure you don’t forget to take the dog out.

The company is skipping the Super Bowl this year, opting instead to advertise its cars during the Puppy Bowl, and through social marketing and apps.

These four new ads are part of the automaker’s third annual “Dog Tested, Dog Approved” marketing campaign.

The company seems intent on keeping its standing among the dog-loving community, and with good reason — about 70 percent of Subaru owners have a pet, roughly twice the figure for car owners in general.

For the second year in a row, it’s sponsoring the “Game Day Dog Walk,” in which pet owners sign a pledge on Subaru’s Facebook page, as 88,000 pet owners did last year, to walk their dog on Game Day.

Subaru also sponsors the “Dogbook” app — basically Facebook for pets — and it has partnered to launch a new app called “MapMyDOGWALK,” a canine version of the “MapMyFITNESS” app you can download to your Smartphone.

The new ads feature groups of dogs headed out on adventures – a ski trip, camping, a trip to the lake in which the dogs join in to help the doggie driver parallel park and, of course, a day at the beach.

(To see all our “Woof in Advertising” posts, click here.)

Subaru of America, Inc. has donated a custom-designed Outback to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), to help them collect and process evidence at animal crime scenes.

The modified 2010 Outback has specialized lighting, a radio, computer, exam table, roof rack and refrigerator in which to store evidence.

“We created the Subaru Outback CSI vehicle to transport the ASPCA’s Veterinary Forensics team to hard-to-access crime scenes,” said Todd Lawrence, promotions and sponsorship manager for Subaru of America, Inc.

“We needed a vehicle that allows us to reach some of the crime scenes where our larger unit cannot,” said Dr. Melinda Merck, senior director for Veterinary Forensics at the ASPCA.

Dr. Merck said the older unit was primarily used to examine animals, but the new response vehicle focuses more on examining evidence from animal crime scenes. The new unit will be based out of Gainesville, Florida, home of the ASPCA’s veterinary forensics program.

Subaru this month rolled out a series of ads featuring dogs behind the wheel of cars.

In the ads for the Subaru Forester, the canine driver confronts the kind of situations with which we human drivers are familiar - the indecipherable voice at the drive-up window, the travails of parallel parking, and, of course, a pushy cat stealing our parking space.

The ads all end with the tagline “Dog tested. Dog approved.”

The spots premiered during a marathon of  Animal Planet’s “Dogs 101,” and were shown during the Puppy Bowl and Westminster Dog Show.

About half of Subaru’s customers own a pet, and the company has recognized the importance of being dog friendly — in making its cars and its ads.

In 2008, Subaru, which is an ASPCA sponsor, ran print ads that asked ”Without dogs, how would you get rid of that new-car smell?”

The new ads, though clearly in the “don’t try this at home” department, are pretty witty. Here are two more: