Mr. Sub has debuted a new TV campaign that taps into 1950s educational films, with a twist.
Dubbed over the black-and-white images of crewcut kids in gym class, women applying for an office job and couples in therapy is hilariously out-of-sync audio talking about a variety of sub-related issues.
The campaign, done by Toronto-based agency Metrick System, is the first since the brand fired BOS back in October over a spot that sparked a letter/e-mail writing campaign by the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers) calling it offensive to the gay community. Mr. Sub declined to comment on the new campaign.
Agency president Laurence Metrick said, despite doing small signage projects for the brand in the past, the shop didn’t pitch for the TV business.
In fact, he was a bit surprised when they got the call to expand their creative duties. “I think they said, ‘We’ve tried every other terrific agency in the city and now we’ll try [you],’ ” said Metrick with a laugh. “How long will we have the account? Every day is a new day. I think we’ll have it for a while. At least until next Monday.”
There are currently three new spots running, with an additional three to be rolled-out in the next few weeks. Metrick said the agency contemplated reshooting the film footage but quickly realized it would be tough to match the originals. “They’re so good the way they are,” he said. “You can’t replicate it. They’re almost like art. It’s comical beyond belief.”
“Mr. Sub has always done some pretty funny spots that were 25 seconds of comedy and five seconds of brand… For these we just tried to make sure to talk about the food throughout,” he said.
“I’ve found that if you talk about the product throughout the spot, you end up with a better spot. You just have to find a creative way to do that and make it interesting. I wish it was more complicated than that. I’ve always wanted to have one of those big Geoffrey Roche answers, but I don’t.”
