Subway Is Owning Customisation

Jalapeños on tuna, a mountain of sweetcorn on tikka; Subway is the home of customisation (even the ridiculously wacky ones). Its latest brand platform, Get Your Own Way, champions the brand’s unique selling point: the customer can choose whatever they want.

The work is the brand’s first ever standalone EMEA campaign – one that its EMEA CMO Louise Wardle describes as “very exciting” for the brand. 

“Choice and customisation isn't something new for Subway,” she begins. “Build your own has always been there since day one, but we kind of always treated it like an operation, not a brand idea.

“Get Your Own Way was a tagline that came off an innovation session with Saatchi & Saatchi, who we've worked with for a number of years, and it's not just about picking the toppings. It shows about controlling a category; fast food is trended towards fixed combos, app-driven defaults, algorithm upsells. We're going the opposite way on purpose.”

Working with its long-standing creative agency Saatchi & Saatchi, the work includes witty snippets of some of Subway’s moments of customisation, alongside OOH work of real customer receipts – more on that to come. 

Wardle heavily praises Saatchi’s creative input during the planning process of the campaign, as they highlighted customer insights found on Reddit which sparked everything; “I thought it was genius. The customers are telling us that's what they do, and all our research proves that  even though we want them to try new things, customers they tend to eat what they've always ordered.”

For Franki Goodwin, CCO at Saatchi & Saatchi, building a long-term brand platform around customisation is “like building the perfect sub”. 

She continues: “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.”

Wardle further discusses Subway’s new brand platform, customer insights, and standing out in a fast-growing category.

This is the first standalone EMEA campaign for Subway – how has it been creating the first campaign?

I've been here about seven years and worked from international to EMEA and over quite a lot of countries; I'm so excited with the work because it's customisation that is the point of difference.

We've checked it along the way as you have to when you're coming up with campaigns that cross borders to make sure it culturally connects.

There's two AV scripts which talk about the consumer being in control with a little bit of witt. Subway's a fun brand, so it's based off a positive situation, not a negative. And we struggled with this with Saatchi & Saatchi for a little while: it was going too negative. Oh, it rains today. Subway makes your day better by getting your own way. It's not about that.

So it's a big idea around somebody goes and does something that they've always wanted to do. You know you've got a really good creative idea when you can literally throw script after script after script, and not just in AV. How could this play out on social? How could this play out on out of home? And honestly, I don't think I've been more excited for an idea like this, certainly within Subway.

The receipts got me really excited, and then the script and being able to jump off those emotional connections. I've got a team out in Dubai, and they were like, ‘Oh yeah, we could do it for this, and we could do it for that,’ And you could see them genuinely getting into it at the beginning.

With the receipts OOH, and with OOH being a medium we're seeing more and more of, what do you think that using analogue mediums is saying for creatives and for brands for the future of marketing?

I think out of home is where you're basically saying we chose this in this place for everyone to see, right? AI gives you infinite versions of creativity, whereas with out of home you need to be confident to put stuff in OOH. You can't just pull it like you can anything that's on digital. You can't almost control when it goes up and down. I know we buy a location for a period of time, but they're always a little bit off.

So you have to be really confident. And you know the rule I was always taught as a graphic designer back in the day: seven words or more. You really have to think about: ‘Does the big idea come across? Does it look appealing? Is somebody going to get it?’ 

I love it if somebody looks at it and they just have that smirk, and it kind of connects with them emotionally. I mean, if you can do all of those things in OOH, you know you've got a good campaign.

We do have some DOOH where we play with it a little more. But the static out of homes, I think this looks powerful. And most people who are Subway lovers, they get it. They crave their own build. They don't crave our builds all the time. They crave their own build because they can take our meatball marinara and add their jalapeno or their sweetcorn.

OOH’s not going anywhere. We've got 2200 locations across the UK, so it means that we can always place advertising near where that store is. 

Receipts kind of breaks all the rules. We've got two out of homes: the ones that will talk about the product more, and it's got the product shot. 

With the original idea there was some discussion about should the Subway logo be green and yellow, and I was a firm no because the receipt's not green and yellow. There’s a real beauty in using actual real receipts. 

I guarantee that these things exist globally. This is not just something that's unique to the UK and Ireland.

Subway is expanding across European markets, with 300 new restaurants coming across the next 10 years. How are you managing the expectation of this new work rolling out alongside such an expansion?

It's really exciting. I sit in some potential new franchisee meetings, and I'm able to talk with passion. We've awakened the sleeping giant; it's the first time that we've really had the confidence and the conviction to go out there in years. 

Customisation's always been there. But those receipts gave us that confidence to go: this is out there. Customers are doing it. We should be talking more about it.

International is the biggest growing part of Subway, not just in the EMEA region. There's lots of new deals on a weekly basis, and it's from bigger franchise partners moving into new formats.

So I am so excited about the new work and presenting it to other potential franchisees see it out there, noting that Subway's on a journey, and it's exciting times.

How does creativity position Subway as a standout in its competitive and fast-growing category that it sits in?

I think that the customisation and the emotional connection, the connecting with the sandwich. 

A lot of brands don't have what we have, and they can't suddenly change all their back-of-house kitchens to be able to do that customisation journey. 

The healthier aspect of Subway and the fresh aspect of Subway in a world where people are more looking to eat healthier, not all the time because it's still about choice – and we always sell cookies. We'll never profess to be the healthiest brand out there because we're not. It's about choice.

The fact that you can make millions of differences. We had a mathematician once work out how many different combinations there were in Subway, and it ran into the millions. That emotional connection with that sub; I don't think many people can do that because it's theirs. It's their build. It's not the McDonald's burger or the Greggs pre-packaged sandwich.

How much have you valued working with Saatchi & Saatchi as a creative partner?

I'm a creative at heart. I studied graphic design, so I'm often drawing pictures and saying, ‘Hey, what about if we did this? What about we did that?’, and I love the Saatchi & Saatchi team because they listen.

There's some creative agencies who don't understand the brand, but we sent that team to go and work in our restaurants so they could really live and experience the brand, and I think that's so important because that's when you hear the orders about customisation. The person who has a weird and wonderful sub. 

They really feel like they're an extension of our marketing team. I really appreciate them as people, not just creatives, because I just believe they live and breathe the brand as much as we do.

I love the fact that they'll just pick up the phone. They won't wait for the next meeting, or they won't go, ‘I'm going to charge you hours for that phone call.’ They very much feel like they are an extension of the team, and our offices are quite close as well, so we're often popping in and out, and I think that really helps the account manager relationship. And if you've got a problem, I'll often just phone up and go, ‘I've got a bit of a problem. Let's just riff through how we can solve it’.

And finally, what is your favourite Subway combination? 

I love Spudway – that was my baby that launched in the UK. I like rotisserie chicken, bacon, southwest sauce, jalapenos, sweetcorn, lettuce and peppers. And I will have that also in a sub or in a wrap. I just love our rotisserie chicken with the bacon, and then I might change it to the extra spicy Southwest.