Subway turns choice into a brand promise

The integrated campaign puts real guest choices at the centre of the creative, positioning Subway's ability to let customers create their meals as a key brand strength.

Subway has launched Get Your Own Way, its first standalone EMEA brand campaign, with Saatchi & Saatchi building the proposition around the customisation that defines the brand's guest experience.

The campaign uses humour, film and a redesigned visual identity to explore what happens when people are used to getting exactly what they want.

Subway builds brand platform around customization

Get Your Own Way presents customisation as a moment of respite from a world where many choices are made for consumers. The campaign introduces a visual identity inspired by Subway's bains – the food counter containers that hold ingredients and enable customers to customise their meals.

The graphic shapes of the bains form the basis of a flexible design system used across the brand's assets and markets throughout EMEA. The identity also introduces an updated colour palette, typography and photographic style focused on the moments when guests get exactly what they want.

Films turn Subway customisation into wider freedom

The campaign's films follow a series of tongue-in-cheek scenarios in which people take the idea of getting their own way beyond Subway. One film features someone changing the channel during football at a pub, while another shows a learner driver stopping at a supermarket to pick up essentials.

The scenarios suggest that getting your own way at Subway can give people the confidence to expect the same freedom elsewhere, extending the brand's customisation proposition into everyday situations.

Subway campaign extends into reactive media

The campaign will also use reactive editorial placements in The Sun and The Metro, responding to the news agenda in the spirit of Get Your Own Way.

Additional OOH executions highlight individual customer quirks and highly specific requests for personalised subs. One receipt-style execution features the request: "For my Spicy Italian I’d like one jalapeno placed at random so it’s like SURPRISE!! POW!"

Saatchi & Saatchi develops Subway's EMEA identity

Louise Wardle, EMEA CMO, Subway: “As long as we’ve been in business, all Subway subs have been made by hand, right in front of you, selected by you. Only Subway lets you get your own way, and it’s our superpower. The team at Saatchi has leant into this and helped us establish it as a brand promise, using humour and design to show that when you always get your own way at Subway, you might just start to think you can get it everywhere.”

Franki Goodwin, CCO, Saatchi & Saatchi: “Building a long-term brand platform around customisation is a bit like building the perfect sub… (yes… this is my metaphor and I’m sticking with it)… you need the foundations of a great design system (bread), a film construct that is flexible and fun (those are our fillings) and then you need lashings of craft and humour (that’s the secret sauce)… then everyone really can get their own way! I love this work — it’s an authentic insight, driven by customer experience and focused entirely on what everyone loves about Subway.”

The campaign launched will run across OLV, OOH, radio and print. Get Your Own Way marks Subway's first standalone EMEA brand campaign.

www.subway.com

www.saatchi.com

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