In the world of marketing, when in doubt, companies love to go back to the beginning.
That’s the plan for Subway, which unveiled a new ad campaign for 2016 called “Founders.” It highlights details about massive restaurant chain’s co-founders Peter Buck and Fred DeLuca, who started a fresh sandwich shop in 1965 at a time when fast food and frozen dinners were becoming dominant forces in the food industry.
Subway is employing a popular marketing campaign that many brands have tried before: talk about the heritage and original purpose of the company. Often times, that message can be lost or muddled after decades of ad campaigns, gimmicks and in this case, a recent scandal. Marketers tout a back-to-basics mentality to press the reset button.
“We were fresh before it was fresh to be fresh,” the ad proclaims. That’s a bid to perhaps hitch a ride to the prevailing fresher ingredients pitch that has been made by Panera (PNRA), Chipotle (CMG), and other fast-casual chains.
The full ad can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hg1bZXUQZUQ
The Subway campaign debuted during NFL programming this weekend, AdAge reports, and also is representative of an investment in a brand that has been hit by the twin worries of slowing sales and a PR nightmare after former pitchman Jared Fogle was ensnared in a child-sex case. Fogle was sentenced to 15 years in prison in November. Subway only got around to officially cutting ties with Fogle in August.
