The “Two Ways to Subway” campaign carefully positioned the new Series menu as a choice, promoting the sandwiches without alienating existing customers who would still prefer to create their own.
The Year of the Sub
For many, 2023 was the year of King Charles’s coronation. For others, it was Barbenheimer. For me, it was sandwiches. That was the year I stepped in as Creative Director for Subway across the UK and EMEA. As it happened, I had arrived at a pivotal moment in sandwich history. After 56 years, Subway was about to do something radical: introduce a menu.
No, seriously. The new Series Menu was a pretty big deal for a chain famous for its anything-goes philosophy. Until then, ordering a Footlong had been less a transaction than a tiny act of self-expression. Many loyal fans cherished the freedom to fill their 12 inches of bread with whatever they damn well pleased.
But now Subway was pushing fifteen preordained sandwich combinations. Research showed that not everyone was happy about it. For some, it offered welcome simplicity. But for others, it sounded dangerously close to sandwich authoritarianism.
With a potential backlash on our hands, we needed to introduce the Series Menu while making it clear that nobody’s sandwich sovereignty was under threat.
Rather than ignore that tension, we leaned into it. “Two Ways to Subway” playfully pitted two kinds of customer against each other: those ready to trust the menu, and those convinced only they knew how to make the perfect sub.
Next, we made the case for specific menu items, celebrating the new flavour-packed creations on offer.
These were not merely tastier lunch options.
They had the potential to change your whole day.
Possibly life-improving.
We made that point with a list of increasingly ridiculous adjectives.
Meanwhile, Subway became the official sponsor of two of TV’s biggest reality shows, Love Island and the returning Big Brother. Naturally, we saw this as a chance to introduce the new menu to an audience already fluent in temptation, drama and the reality-TV soundbite.
For Love Island, we helped customers couple up with their perfect sandwich.
For Big Brother, we turned the new subs into something worth betraying the whole house for.
Next came a campaign proclaiming the obvious but important truth that lunches do not come much bigger or better than a Footlong.
Bigger in size. Bigger in flavour. Bigger in self-belief.
As if the year hadn’t been eventful enough for Europe’s sandwich community, Subway also launched a brand-new loyalty programme. Now customers could earn Subway Cash with every purchase to spend on anything they liked.
A suspiciously straightforward proposition, really.
But we fixed that.
Because did “anything” actually mean anything?
Finally, Halloween gave us the perfect excuse to get weird.
It also gave us a chance to experiment with AI, as was legally required in 2023.
The focus was Subway’s hot-pressed SubMelts. Deliciously melty, deeply cheesy and exactly the sort of thing you might order after dark against your better judgement.
Which made them the perfect trigger for that well-known phenomenon, cheese dreams.
So we made a cautionary film about the surreal side effects. Based on real cheese dreams crowdsourced through Subway and Uber Eats social channels, AI helped bring those unsettling visions to life in all their uncanny glory.
The campaign launched in the lead-up to Halloween, alongside a 20% Uber Eats offer available only after dark.
A small financial incentive to awaken your own freaky nightmares.