Retail Dude

Certainly, sir, and how would you like your sandwich?

At SUBWAY sandwich shops around the world, the ’submarine’ style sandwiches come hot or cold, and with an almost infinite combination of breads, fillings and sauces. The first choice: do you want your sandwich to be ‘6-inch’ or ‘footlong’. Then there are 5 types of bread, 11 toppings, and 9 dressings and sauces to choose from - making for an almost endless combination of possibilities. These choices involve consumers in the brand, allowing them to ‘make it their own’ and giving them a reason to keep coming back. There are more than two million different sandwich combinations available on the SUBWAY menu.

The SUBWAY restaurant chain was founded in 1965 by Fred DeLuca, a 17-year-old college freshman, and family friend Dr. Peter Buck. The first restaurant opened in Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA on August 28 and was called Pete’s Super Submarines. Now, there are nearly 30021 Restaurants In 88 Countries, and the company estimates that about 1,900 SUBWAY sandwiches are served every minute around the world. It’s the biggest fast-food chain in the USA, and the company aims to overtake McDonald’s globally by 2009. The number goes on increasing each day. This is one of a kind of its business, since all its outlets are franchisees. They believe that it’s the country that wants good and healthy food that brings them to it and not their operations. SUBWAY chain is a privately held company and is not traded on any stock exchange.

McCarthy, Mambro Bertino Advertising (MMB), located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the SUBWAY^® chain’s creative agency. They very widely use the acronym BMT® which stands for Biggest, Meatiest, and Tastiest. In the early days of SUBWAY^® restaurants, it was a promotion that was based on the Brooklyn Manhattan Transit system in New York City that went along with the subway theme.

And in a deliberate strategy targeting rivals such as McDonald’s and Burger King, SUBWAY have positioned themselves as the healthy choice: offering sandwiches with ‘6 grams of fat or less’ as well as salads and other low-fat options. There is one amazing story of a person called Jared Fogle who lost 245 lbs. by eating nothing but SUBWAY sandwiches for almost a year in a diet program of his own design that included lots of walking and, yes, he is real. Jared came to our attention after Men’s Health magazine ran an article that featured his amazing weight-loss success story. Appearing in a series of SUBWAY TV commercials beginning in January 2000, Jared has since inspired many others to follow his lead. These days, he keeps busy by traveling throughout the United States and Canada, making public appearance and doing thousands of interviews for television, radio, newspapers and magazines. All their menu cards and delivery have the nutrient content of the diet. A wholesome list is also available about nutrition and contents in its website.

They also care about the localized market where they go into, such as they replaced beef with chicken when they launched in India and similarly pork with beef when in Pakistan, so as not to hurt sentiments of its residents.

The questions that comes to my mind is that  “Can we offer customers more choice, and so make the brand more appealing, while staying true to our focused and distinctive brand offer? “

Who remembers that Porsche has a category of SUV’s?  Usually companies and organizations spread out while trying to do so and in the process dilute its own image even if it is the “MENU”. This is what SUBWAY has done so exceptionally.  

BRAVO!

Sudip

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