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Inside Subway's Brand Transformation Efforts

Subway has seen its share of the limited-service sandwich market fall from 41% to 28% between 2013 and 2020, according to Technomic data. Following a tough 2020 that saw store closures and other COVID-19-related challenges, Subway recently rolled out its largest menu update (more than 20 changes) and brand initiative and accompanying campaign, entitled "Eat Fresh Refresh."

Subway2Carrie Walsh, who joined Subway in October 2019 as CMO, recently sat down for a Q&A with Restaurant Dive to discuss the new campaign, which features Tom Brady, Serena Williams, Steph Curry and Megan Rapinoe. Here are some highlights of their conversation:

  • “We wanted to underpin the creative with some of the biggest star power that we could, but really, they were the supporting cast here—the food was the hero… [Brady, Williams, Curry and Rapinoe] embody that idea of the campaign, which is in order to be fresh, you refresh."
  • “The creative idea was that it wasn't about any one individual change that we were making, but rather, it was about the sum of all of the different changes that added up to a better sandwich experience for our guests.”
  • Subway has traditional television ads as part of its ‘Never-ending’ creative approach, but the campaign “launched with 11 pieces of unique television creative and each one of them cuts off, nodding to the fact that there's more to come. We brought the message in hundreds of pieces of digital creative, social creative, in-store and print. We actually even tried some new things: we tried gas station TV, we bought the waiting page on Roku. We just tried to surprise guests with all of the different ways that we were surrounding them and their day with all of the different pieces of our message… We're seeing that the more creative elements people are exposed to, the stronger their perceptions of some of those key messages that we're delivering.”
  • “Carat combined with McgarryBowen as the lead creative agency, and then we also have Proof Advertising, United Entertainment Group and Jack Morton working together to try to make sure all the pieces were getting in front of consumers at different moments in time.”

Read the full article from Restaurant Dive.

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