Taking it Off: SUBWAY’s 10-year Crusade
Written by Cynthia Stephens (contact - e-mail) -- March 13th, 2008 | Recommend This
This is the time of year that visions of sugarplums turn to scary thoughts about waistlines. My gym is currently overflowing with loud (and sweaty) people hoping to be among the “biggest losers” in the contest of the month.
For the past decade, the SUBWAY® restaurant chain has tried to stand out in the crowded fast-food market by striking a low-fat eating chord with consumers. SUBWAY, is celebrating “10 years of keeping it off” featuring spokesman Jared Fogle, who lost more than 200 pounds and his “fat pants” by exercising and eating at SUBWAY. On the 10th anniversary of the campaign and the new “Tour de Pants”, I wonder: has SUBWAY’s message resonated with consumers?
In January, traffic to Subway.com jumped to more than 500,000 unique visitors, making it one of the top 3,500 sites on the Internet. People are clearly interested in the restaurant. One glance at Compete’s Search Analytics data shows that some of Subway’s online visitors are interested in the nutritional information of the SUBWAY menu.
- “Subway nutrition” drives 2% of search referrals to subway.com.
- In contrast, the top 5 searches for Taco Bell and Quiznos have nothing to do with nutrition.
- Nutritional searches aren’t uncommon among rival fast-food sites. The keyword “McDonald’s nutrition” drives 3% of search referrals to McDonalds.com. “Wendys nutrition” also drives 2.8% of search referrals to Wendys.com, although it isn’t a top-5 keyword.
People are interested in the nutritional information of SUBWAY food. But that finding by itself isn’t a clear signal that SUBWAY’s marketing approach is resonating. Does SUBWAY attract people interested in diet and fitness in general? Better than fast-food chain rivals?
Compete data shows that approximately one out of 10 online consumers is a diet, beauty and fitness enthusiast, visiting sites like Weightwatchers and BallyFitness.
- These diet/beauty/nutrition enthusiasts were three times more likely to visit SUBWAY.com in January than the average online consumer.
- They are five times more likely to visit Subwayfreshbuzz.com. Visitors to this SUBWAY site can enter to be in a commercial with Jared, play the “Pants Dance,” and submit their own weight loss stories.
- SUBWAY’s “fresh buzz” site tops more than 25 fast-food rivals in attracting this desired segment.
SUBWAY is a national sponsor of the American Heart Association’s Heart Walks and is helping to promote the non-profit Jared Foundation online. Thanks, Jared and SUBWAY, for reminding us to make healthy lifestyle choices. It’s an important message that doesn’t seem to be falling on deaf ears.
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March 14th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Interesting data. Seems quite strange that any diet, beauty or fitness enthusiast would visit some of the sites listed there! Gotta love Compete!
March 16th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I love Subway…
March 20th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Regarding search queries, do you disclose *all* search keywords to your customers? Do you try to filter some sensitive information (such as SSN) from being disclosed to customers?
For example, if somebody enters a person’s name and SSN in search
engine, google will still generate URL even if there is no hit. If a person in your sample (especially a subsriber to ISP who is unknowingly being monitored) enter some sensitive information onto Google, Compete collects them (I guess that is fine), and share/disclose it (no good).
I would like to know if your company has some filtering or safeguard measure on this issue.
Thank you very much for your response. (I emailed too but did not hear from anybody so I am posting this question hoping that I will get some response…)