Subway is playing up and playing on the size of its Footlongs in a new campaign from The Martin Agency, the shop's first work for the chain.
The campaign, which the agency did on a project basis, features a new tagline, "So much sandwich."
The work has a bit of a humorous tone and includes extreme closeups of the two sandwiches being sold for $6 on a limited basis, the Subway Club and the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki. (Yes, Footlongs are now $6 when they're on promotion and have been for some time, even if the $5 Footlongs of the once-ubiquitous jingle still pop into your head.)
A 15-second pre-roll video pans across a Footlong sub as a voiceover teases the viewer about not being near the end of the sandwich.
The campaign, which includes TV, digital, and social, comes as Subway keeps trying to win back diners, particularly millennials. Subway has had its share of struggles, including longtime spokesman Jared Fogle's prison sentence on child pornography charges.
Subway's U.S. sales fell 1.7% to $11.3 billion in 2016 and it was the only restaurant among the top 10 chains to post a decline, according to Technomic.
Before the new campaign from The Martin Agency, Subway was running spots from MMB focused on offering a different Footlong sandwich for $6 each day of the week. Subway said "So much sandwich" is not an official new brand tagline.
Subway gave most of its creative business back to MMB, its former incumbent, in 2016 after working with BBDO for about a year. Karlin Lindhardt moved to Subway from Accenture earlier this year as SVP-Marketing, North America.
Digital components of the new campaign include ads such as one on Pandora that shrinks the visual of the song being played while suggesting a Subway $6 Footlong also sounds good.
A 360-degree video for Facebook clearly not meant for vegetarians lingers on a meaty sandwich for 60 seconds, essentially an eternity in sandwich-staring time.
