Subway is extending its reach to tweens by way of a summer tie-in with Vans. The QSR is building out its kids marketing under new management that took charge in early 2005, and brought in Marketing Director Michelle Cordial from the agency side. Her mandate: “Fix kids’ meals with no more money,” she laughs. Subway wanted to leverage its inherently better-for-you menu, and draw kids without turning off teens.
“We’re at a unique nexus with the focus on childhood obesity. We’re lucky we don’t have any baggage going in,” Cordial says. “We thought, ‘Kids don’t want to eat healthily,’ but they’re talking about healthy food in school, so their perspective is different.”
Subway breaks its second Vans promo this month, with a slate of premiums designed to appeal to tweens and younger kids. A May-June effort put Vans-licensed premiums, such as lanyards and key chains, in Kids’ Pak meals; those, and value meals, carried game pieces for a sweepstakes awarding a trip for six to Vans’ Triple Crown of Surfing competitions in Hawaii in November-December. Kids agency b. little & co., New York, negotiated the Vans deal and handles the promotions.
Vans’ sponsorship of board-based sports (surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding) gives Subway entry to those properties — but it’s Vans’ authenticity that drew Subway. “We were looking for a lifestyle brand, not necessarily…sports properties,” Cordial says.
“[Vans] said Subway is the only QSR they’d consider,” says b. little President Kathy Vosters. Cordial and Vosters watch teen-trend research for other properties that can skew to tweens without turning off the older kids. Premiums are based on retail trends, too. “Kathy says that if it’s sold at Claire’s, we want it,” Cordial laughs. Vosters adds: “We watch retailers who do well, and take the lead from them.”
Subway wants to protect its high market share among teens, who “found us on their own” with no targeted marketing, Cordial says. “We’re the adult choice for kids. We want to be a coming-of-age brand.”
Teen focus groups told Subway they trust the brand because sandwiches are made in front of customers. “Tweens said, ‘Subway doesn’t care if I’m a picky eater,’” Cordial says. “The 9-year-olds even argued about whether Subway could be considered fast food.”
Subway kick-started its kids marketing last fall with a Calling All Champions contest that sent 10 winners to Hawaii to surf with Subway spokes-kid Bethany Hamilton and shoot three TV spots (the last, “Play the Summer,” is airing now). It started as a one-off swap with Discovery Kids: The cable network pitched in airtime, and Subway matched it with in-store branding for the network.
A misguided movie tie-in triggered the move. Subway was negotiating hard with a studio over a licensing deal when Cordial realized the studio was using Subway P-O-P to sell its own DVDs. “Either they had to waive the licensing fee or stop using our P-O-P,” she says. “We spent the licensing fee to do a real estate swap with a media partner instead.”
Subway will continue to layer kids promotions into its general-market strategy, and boost its marketing budget as sales rise. McCarthy, Mambro, Bertino Advertising, Boston, handles ads.
With 26,000 restaurants worldwide (about 20,000 of them in the U.S.), Subway answers to its franchisees — one factor that has kept marketing budgets low. Subway won’t try to match McDonald’s and Burger King budgets; it’ll keep going outside, instead.
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