Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Five Dollar, Five Dollar, Five Dollar...

When I was trying to think of a good commercial to blog about the “five-dollar foot-long” commercials came to mind. I love the simplicity and catchy-ness of the ads. When you really think about it, it seems like such a boring concept of repeating the phrase over and over again with the same hand motions throughout the entire commercial – but it works! The commercials feature everyday people and situations like police officers, flight attendants, monster, celebrity types, and even every day people – like the one where the man walks into subway and the people start running in singing the “five-dollar” song and the man is of course persuaded to buy one.

The catchy tune is something that often sticks in my head and I feel like that’s probably just what the Subway advertisers wanted. It’s the perfect song to get people thinking about Subway and eventually persuading them to actually go eat at one of their restaurants.

I found this interesting piece in an article from Slate Magazine: To ad agency MMB, the advent of a $5 foot-long seemed in itself momentous and compelling enough that elaborate persuasive efforts could only cloud the issue. The key was to be as straightforward as possible. So the team devised a simple hand gesture to symbolize the $5 price and the ample length of the sandwich. This semaphore had a pleasing parsimony. It’s so true that straightforward and simple can really go a long way in the advertising and marketing world!

I also feel like Subway was careful with the repetitiveness in the commercials. It seems like they keep repeating the same phrase over and over, but its just enough to keep it fresh in your mind, but I don’t think its too much to drive you crazy. The song has peaceful tone to it that simply reminds you of Subway in a kind of subliminal message way. When it comes down to it, it’s really just a fun song to sing. People always burst out singing it and doing the hand motions, I think its pretty funny and great marketing once again. I know that my roommates and I will randomly start singing it and then other people will just jump in.

Way to go Subway! [Eat Fresh!]

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