Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Way to go Subway!

You know who I wish I was right now? I wish I was friends with one of the guys playing the construction workers in those Subway five dollar foot long commercials.

Because I’d like be sitting there on a Sunday, watching football with the crew, then be able to get up and punch the guy in the arm every time that stupid ad came on. Because I can’t handle it.

Chris touched on it, but I need to get it off my chest: Subway is ruining my enjoyment of sports. Those damn commercials make me want to drive to my nearest Subway, walk in, grab a bread knife and slice my wrists so I bleed all over the fixings bar.

Look, they’re not the first commercials to drive me crazy. Toyota’s Saved By Zero campaign almost led me to throwing myself into the windshield of the nearest speeding Tundra.

John Mellencamp’s “This is Our Country” almost caused me to go back to Canada, until I learned there was a Canadian version of that song. I haven’t been that disappointed in my country since Nickelback made it big.

But these Subway ones are different. For one, I like Subway. I’ve been a Subway customer for 15 years. I refuse to eat at Quizno’s out of loyalty to Subway. So seeing these ads, it’s like a friend letting me down by not paying back a loan, or jamming out on plans, or marrying a girl who gets pregnant and wants to have the baby at home via hypnosis without drugs.

Plus, the song is just insipid. It was bad enough when they had the jingle with professional singers and everything, but now they’ve got regular people singing it off-key. Personally, I’d like to know how much they’re getting paid, because then I’ll finally know how much human dignity costs.

I’m not naïve. I know the goal of advertising isn’t to be good, but to be memorable. So in that regard, you could say the Subway ads are a success. A post on this blog alone is worth untold millions in advertising.

I just wish these giant corporations with unlimited advertising budgets could make a little more effort to make good commercials, instead of bad ones. I mean this guy did it, and this ad looks like it was shot in his store with a camcorder.




Graham

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