Subway's Deja Vu Deal: Will it Work?

I read an article on Ad Age that discusses Subway's latest strategic move. They will be offering a buy-one-get-one deal all throughout May, and released their campaign on Sunday, May 1st. Through hearing this commercial on the radio and reading this article, I thought their strategy would be an interesting blog to write about.

According to the article, a lot of fast food chains are starting to shift their focus toward breakfast options. If you're on the go, or looking for a quick and inexpensive morning meal, stopping at your local fast food chain is a pretty good option. These chains have taken advantage of this growing opportunity by promoting their breakfast menus and giving deals. Subway's sales dropped about 3.4% to $11.5 billion last year, which is the second year they've seen a noticeable decline. They knew that a change in their marketing needed to occur in order to help boost these declining sales.To combat this issue, Subway decided to shift their marketing promotions to breakfast, to try and get people in their stores in the morning. Having a large focus on sandwiches, they tend to be busiest during lunchtime.

This new campaign features what they call a "Deja Vu" commercial. They are promoting their new deal; if you buy a 6-inch or footlong sub before 9am, you will get a free 6-inch breakfast sandwich. This is a clever promotion, because it tries to get people in the store earlier to grab their lunch food, while also encouraging them to try a free breakfast sandwich. Once people try the breakfast sandwich and realize they like it, they will start visiting Subway not just for lunch sandwiches, but hopefully for breakfast too! It uses repetition in order to catch consumers' attention and continuously remind them that they will be offering this deal all throughout May. This is a "Deja Vu" commercial because they offered a very similar promotion back in 2012.

I think that this move is really strategic and clever for Subway to try and increase sales and keep up with the fast food trends. Because they position themselves as a healthier fast food option, they might have difficulty competing with McDonald's or other "traditional" fast food chains. We'll see if this campaign helps Subway make a comeback!