I would have loved to have been at the table when the Quiznos marketing

[Dover]

people decided on that....that....thing...with the raspy screechy voice to represent their product. I wish I had some RAID or a baseball bat I could use to smash the screen. ARRRRRRRRRRRGH!

REPULSIVE, IRRITATING, HAIRY GOOBERS!!! It looks like someone's toothy, matted hairy toupee. Yuk! A pathetic attempt at the anti-Ad....and SOOOO unappetizing. What were they thinking?

[tedoll78]

1. But ya gotta admit..

those teeth are so.. appetizing..

Remind me of Timmy from 'South Park', in some weird way..

[Dover]

7. yeah, a pathetic rip off of the genre....

..

[ArwenJade]

2. I think they must have been smoking crack at the time

I hate that commercial. They scare me.

[everythingsxen]

3. WE LIKE QUIZNO'S!

WE LIKE THE MOON!

[AlienGirl]

4. I LIKE THE MOOOOOON!

Because it is very close to us!

They got a pepper bar!

Spongmonkeys RUL3Z!

Tucker

[everythingsxen]

6. Sing again!!!

:bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce:

[AlienGirl]

8. WE LIKE THE MOOOOOOOOON!

They got a pepper bar!

It is very close to us!

Any coupon works!

[everythingsxen]

12. Again agaiN!!!

:bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce::bounce:

I LOVE IT WHEN YOU SING!!

[AlienGirl]

14. In a time of chimpanzees I was a monkey

WE LIKE THE MOOOOON! BECAUSE IT IS VERY CLOSE TO US! THEY GOT A PEPPER BAR!

[everythingsxen]

17. YAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!

You have to sing it for me live though! When we game. Well before we game; maybe after too. :D

[AlienGirl]

19. Okay!

:D

[Dover]

10. What's the 'moon'?

I'm sure they taste much better than the Ad indicates.

[tedoll78]

23. Here:

http://www.rathergood.com/moon_song/

Yaaay!!!

[Dover]

31. aaaaaaaaaaargh! Gee thanks for that. Knowing the the words makes

it soooo much more tolerable...........................NOT!

Arrrrggggggggggggggggggggggggh..........running from the room....Make it Stooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooop!

[EV1Ltimm]

27. but not as much as a spoon.

and not as much as derigibles.

[Cat Atomic]

5. And yet here we are... talking about Quiznos.

So it worked!

Seriously, I can't remember any Quiznos commericial before the current creepy ones. I know they had them, but I don't remember them.

[Dover]

13. Talking is NOT eating. I lose my appetite .......... I'm repulsed.

..

[Fleshdancer]

15. I like the old ads better

You don't remember the old ones?? The pollster is trying to find people who don't prefer Quiznos over the other, non-toasted sandwich but he has to cheat. Like the time he shot a tranquillizer dart into the woman's neck as she was trying to choose the Quiznos sandwich. She passed out and he got the "answer" he wanted. Sick, but better than the rabid gerbils...or whatever the hell they are.

*sigh* this thread is proof enough that we all watch waaaay too much TV.

[gyopsy]

21. TV is important

Speaking as a radio/television production major. When people watch tv, it's the sound of people like me finding work.

[Fleshdancer]

28. I wish the amount of tv viewers = the amount of jobs in tv

then we wouldn't have anything to worry about. Unfortunately that's not the case.

[gyopsy]

29. That sux

:(

I knew there was a limited job market but I didn't know things were that bad.

[kodi]

32. sure you do, the one with a guy asked if he was raised by wolves

and he reminisces about it.

[Beaker]

53. that wasn't quizno's, was it?

I thought it was a toyota or honda commercial...

[kodi]

55. yes it was.

.

[MattBaggins]

9. So I'm not the only one

I have an idea. Let's use two shriveled up dead hamster-gerbils (or whatever the F*** they are) singing in raspy stereotypical Mexican accents to sell sandwiches!

Bloody brilliant, let's run with it.

[gyopsy]

11. I hate those rats

Those rats selling subs. I think it's the biggest marketing mistake since the New Coke!!

[southerngirlwriter]

16. I don't watch TV, so I haven't heard the commercials

but I've seen pictures online.

I will NEVER eat at Quizno's. Not out of anger that they're contributing to the lowering of America's collective IQ.

Out of fear!! I know it's stupid, but I couldn't eat meat in a place that used what looks like FUCKING RATS in a commercial. God, what the fuck goes on in their kitchen?

I know they don't serve rat meat, but I have a strong gag reflex, and I couldn't do it.

Plenty of people around here feel the same way. My sister called the local Quizno's and bitched them out, and the girl said it was their fourth call today.

[gyopsy]

18. It's gross

Rats and food don't go together. I know that in the 1990s the trend began of linking seemingly two unrelated subjects together to advertise something. Most of the time, it worked wonders. I think Budweiser commercials illustrate that.

But there are limits. Get those gross rats away from my subs. And we don't want to hear about how Quizno's is good to the rats.

[AlienGirl]

22. Rats and food do so go together!

My rat loves food. And coffee.

Tucker

[everythingsxen]

24. Rats are cute.. just ask AlienGirl!

She will show you how cute her rat is!

Rats creep me out a little too.. but I've shared my drinks and food with that rat.. so I am less freaked out now.

[AlienGirl]

25. Hehehe...all your innate fear are belong to us!

Immersion therapy, bay-bee!

[everythingsxen]

26. Eeek!

:P

[everythingsxen]

37. WE LIKE THE RATS!

BECAUSE THEY ARE CLOSE TO US! :D

[tedoll78]

20. Hehe..

I know a number of folks who have rewarded Quiznos with their business. But then again, I hang-out with weirdos here in Austin..

[Dover]

35. I don't think you're weird. But I'll bet you're younger than me

.

[LeftCoast]

41. New Coke was a very successful marketing trick

While everybody was up in arms about getting "old coke" back, they switched from using cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup. Mmmm....yum :puke:

[EV1Ltimm]

30. I'm a big fan of rathergood.com's animation...

i've upped my sub intake 10 fold since the advertising campaign began.

[Dover]

33. Well you are the PERFECT consumer.....their market niche group

apparently.

I am definitely not in that niche...I'm guessing they are targeting the younguns and college crowd...where farts and ghoulish things are still cool and kind of anti-establishment (which the advertising establishment has cleverly figured out).

I get the feeling that a lot of advertising and t.v. programming in general is geared toward and written by young males. I think it just gets old for those not in this group.......or maybe I am just old.

[Bunny]

43. Well I'm a 45 year old female, and I love those commercials!

I think they are creative, and so 'out there' that they're great! My two young daughters love the commercials also. If we lived near a Quiznos we'd go get a sub!

[Susang]

47. 38 year old female fan checking in!

I love the rathergood.com site and am thrilled that Quiznos is giving Joel Veitch lots of money for his creations. Now if only Led Zepplin would let him bring back the Viking Kittens doing the Immigrant Song. That was art! :D

[dutchdemocrat]

34. Big Fan here as as well

Check out the kittens...

http://www.rathergood.com/vines/

They are the best! I thing the Vines are a great band as well.

Here's the even more raw side of Veitch. The Hedgehogs.

http://www.rathergood.com/hedgehogs/

The fact that this thread is this long is evidence that the marketing people made a brilliant decision. Love or hate it, you notice it.

It does not matter who is targeted in this case. Effective branding is what is the issue and has been executed very well. I am not a 'young' un either. I just find Joel's work refreshing and evident of how Macromedia Flash is a unique tool for creating visuals.

[Lizz612]

36. The hedgehogs!

Forget Quizno's, the hedgehogs are getting to me. I was trying to focus in Bio, but all I could think of was nasty slang for female genitalia!

[Beaker]

54. spongemonkies.

that's what the things in the quizno's ad are.

[regnaD kciN]

38. They're everywhere!

No sooner do I finish reading this thread than a familiar voice is heard from the television in the living room...WE LOVE THE SUUUUUUBS.....

[everythingsxen]

40. WE LOVE THE SUUUUBS!

Cuz they are good to us! The Quiznos subs. They are tasty, they are crunchy, they are warm because they toast them. They got a pepper bar!

[maveric]

39. I love them!!

They're bizarre and thought provoking as to "WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY?"

[AlFrankenFan]

42. They were thinking - hey, these are the most annoying things on......

the face of the planet, and people will either turn away from our product with disgust or most likely remember us more and therefore bring in more customers....so they've gotten into all of our heads now.

[Bridget Burke]

44. So, what about the new Guinness spots?

"Treat St Patrick's day like a real holiday". I've searched in vain for images but none appear to be available on the web.

I find them charming in a slightly sick way.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

45. If you don't like an ad, there's about a 95% chance that

the advertiser's not trying to reach you.

I don't like ads with farting horses, but I don't drink beer so what does Budweiser care?

And so it goes with spongmonkeys. The people who like them are, in general, the people in the demographic that actually buys the product.

In a related thread I said I was surprised that Quizno's thought their market skewed so young as to feature spongmonkeys. Well, I did some research and learned the fast-food general target is 18-34. I also learned that Quizno's is trying to break through with a budget one-seventh the size of Subway's. So if you hate the spongmonkeys, check your birthdate...and blame Subway.

I read some trade reviews of the campaign and it's getting a lot of bad press, but not all bad. I agree with this one I'm clipping here, by Bob Garfield at Advertising Age:

<snip>

DEAD VERMIN SELL QUIZNOS SANDWICHES
And Both Spots Break Through the Clutter as Few Ads Do


If you pick the Yankees to return to the World Series, and they do, nobody will ever remember. But if you pick the Tigers ...

Well, we've just seen the new Quiznos campaign from the Martin Agency, Richmond, Va., and all we can say is, "Go Tigers."

Dead vermin
This is a pair of commercials for a hot-sub chain -- i.e., merchants selling food -- that features two withered mice as spokesmen. Actually, they look more like animated mouse carcasses. There's one mouse carcass with a bowler hat, one with an 18th-century commodore's hat, and between them two mouthfuls of maloccluded human teeth and four bulging, mismatched eyeballs. Think Mr. Potato Head, only with vermin.

Stop-action animated dead vermin. To sell sandwiches.

And they're going to work.

That is correct: going to work. In fact, as we shall attempt forthwith to prove, they constitute good advertising.

Now we fully understand that the most recent Quiznos advertising, under the previous agency, we deplored as unappetizing, self-destructive and fundamentally unhinged. We couldn't understand how pictures of a man sucking on a wolf's teat were going to sell grinders to teenagers. We represented that commercial pretty much as the apotheosis of irrelevance and agency self-indulgence. And we were not wrong.

Something of a leap
So, yes, we appreciate that championing the shriveled-rodent approach is something of leap. But we are not daunted.

Because the mice also perform. The Commodore plays the guitar and the other screeches/sings, like something out of "Grover Visits the Sesame Street Department of Health."

We love the subs! Because they are good to us.
The Quiznos subs.
They are tasty. They are crunchy. They are warm because they toast them.
They got a pepper bar.

Then, underneath fetching close-ups of the hot sandwiches, a voice-over describes the new menu items. Then one final glimpse of the singing spokespest and it's over.

OK, why this will work: First, the images and, uh, music, do jump out at you. Maybe like a skeleton in a Halloween Spook House, but jump they undeniably do. From the first frame, these ads break through the clutter as few ads ever have.

Jingle says a lot
Secondly, note the jingle: It's not only catchy, in a perverse please-make-it-stop sort of way, it's also a clear iteration of the product benefits. They are tasty. They are crunchy. They are warm because they toast them. Says a lot more than "I'm lovin' it," does it not?

Finally, this stuff is so weird, unexpected and reckless that it's just plain cool. At least, it will be deemed as cool by the 14- to 24-year-old boys and men who represent 116% of Quiznos audience.

Disturbing associations?
Will it implant disturbing associations about, say, mouse droppings in a food establishment? Maybe. Some percentage of the audience may be too grossed out to even deal with the more disgusting extensions of the campaign's internal logic. Bad enough we have to think about mad-cow disease without worrying about hantavirus, too.

But we don't believe many will take this exercise in absurdity so literally. We believe, on the contrary, that it will make the target talk and think about Quiznos.

Yeah, go Tigers. And go, mice.

<snip>

In closing, I don't hate the spongmonkeys. But I'll tell you who I do hate: Jarrod. GOD, I hate Jarrod! I'm so glad he's gone. I wouldn't care if he lost a thousand pounds - his ugly, personality-free mug made me lose my appetite for Subway. And I was in their target audience.

[Susang]

49. Joel Veitch's spots for Vh1 worked very well

I had read that the rockin' kittens that he did for them were the most requested ads they had ever run. The boy's definitely got something, you have to admit.

[SheWhoMustBeObeyed]

50. Whew, I'm kinda glad to hear that

It puts my mind at ease a bit that there was a benchmark established for the success of Joel Veitch's creations, and that Martin Agency didn't sell the client based on just a website animation. I was thinking Damn, what brand manager would set his butt out on that slim a limb? None in my experience!

[Dover]

51. I hate Jarod AND Subway sandwiches. At least the Quizno sub I had

was a big improvement. But the Ads didn't get me to buy it, and if I hadn't already had a Quiznos, I probably would have stayed away after seeing the Ads.

My favorite subway is by a more local chain and they have NO ads. Just a great product. And that's how I make my decisions.

[Orangepeel]

46. some people LOVE those commercials

I hate them, but then again, I'm too old to be the target market. I have a lot of students who think they are hilarious. :shrug: And, they certainly are attention getting

[DS1]

48. People like crap. It's a rule.

[Beaker]

52. love'em or hate'em...they've made Quizno's a household name-

and that's the whole point.

sheer brilliance.

(jared who...?)

[Shakespeare]

56. DEY GOTTA PEPPAH BAAAAARRR!

Love them spongmonkeys.