Can’t Get a Decent Sandwich? Blame Subway’s Advertising Budget

Man am I getting sick of saturation Subway advertising.  There is no nook or cranny they can’t squeeze themselves into.  Canadian radio, American radio, TV, shows on my computer, you name it.  One ad trumpets how healthy they are, the next shows you a new cholesterol bomb they’re pushing.  That bloody annoying monkey.

What always has blown my mind about Subway is the truly stratospheric and stunning prices they charge for. . .a sandwich.  Why do they charge such prices?  Well, duh, look at the advertising budget.  I can’t believe anyone would pay $10 for a sandwich, but, well, obviously people do.  What is it that people in general find so hard about making a sandwich?  Let me give that a couple more ??.  People who eat at Subway are just driving up prices for anyone else who wants to eat.  It’s irresponsible consumerism.  Dorks who are willing to pay $3 for a Coke, when they could just go to a grocery store and buy a 12-pack for that price, put pressure on everyone else and hurt everyday people struggling to get by.  We all know how expensive staples like bread are getting, and sure I know about grain shortages and prices and so on, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the prices charged by a massive advertising conglomerate like Subway weren’t having a knock-on effect on the upwardly spiraling price of bread.  A lot happens, from field to store, to a kernel of wheat, but if you know that someone is going to pay 10 bucks for. . .a sandwich. . .at the end of the line, well, there’s gotta be room for lots of people to take profit along the way.

Now, of course I can’t cite actual prices for Subway, because, duh, they’d never publish them online.  If people knew how much they were going to have to pay for a sandwich, they’d be stunned.  I could make sandwiches for a scout troop for the cost of one Subway sandwich.  I suppose Subway would say, oh, well, we sell billions of sandwiches all over the world (and our prices are always trending up), so we could never offer a stable price quote beyond a very local area.  –but still, think about it:  what kind of business makes a specific practice of never revealing its prices online?  How does a producer sell a product if the producer won’t tell the consumer the price?  Just bizarre.

Obviously, I have had Subway sandwiches.  It’s been years, but definitely I have had them.  I remember a dismal little narrow Subway shop I went to in Toronto a few times.  It was situated next to two thriving pizza slice operations that I usually frequented.  Subway did have some seating upstairs, though (the store really was shaped and laid out just like a truncated Subway car, or a half Subway sandwich).  I’d usually use a coupon or something so I could get two sandwiches and have food for later on (I must say, though, that Subway sandwiches just do not travel well—put one in the fridge for a couple hours, and it sure doesn’t come out like a sandwich you’d made yourself—odd).  The Subway restaurant was a good place to go if you wanted total peace and quiet to maybe read or do some work on the upper level—you’d sure never encounter any other patrons, and you definitely didn’t have to wait, like you did at the pizza places.  I remember one day I read a certificate on the wall there, and it actually said that that franchise had received an award for being the most popular in Canada.  Well, that was another stunner.  I don’t know if I ever saw another customer in the tiny, dull place, but apparently it was #1 in sales.  Go figure.  Maybe everyone who gets a Subway franchise gets one of those certificates.  Who knows. What I figured was, I guess, was that because it was so comparatively outrageously expensive, no-one went to Subway.

And I suppose I hoped that was the case, and that the Subway blight that has become so universal would be removed from the landscape.  You see, I had bought sandwiches before, from the venerable Canadian Mr. Sub chain.  When a competitor in Subway appeared, I was intrigued and willing to give it a go, but the prices were so stunningly sky-high (gotta pay for that advertising) that it was a relationship that could not last.  And it broke my relationship with Mr. Sub.  What with Subway charging astronomical prices for. . .a sandwich. . .Mr. Sub got hip to that trip pretty quickly; they added a couple ingredients and just about doubled their prices and that was that.  If I went to a Mr. Sub today, I could get my sandwich on about 15 different breads (which, curiously, all taste the same anyway), but the money I’d have to pay would leave a bad taste in my mouth—so it’s probably been years since I went to Mr. Sub, either, and I did at one time like to hoover a regular assorted fairly frequently.  And with Subway boldly showing the way, through advertising to drive up the price of their products, other $10 sandwich chains, like Quizno’s, have been popping up like bedbugs.

Speaking of bread, there’s also the sheer stench of Subway restaurants.  I don’t know how they do it.  If you walk down an alley near one, or park near one, or go to a convenience store they’re attached to, you are assaulted by that peculiar and gross odor that emanates from Subway restaurant locations.  There’s a convenience store near me that I’ll go extra blocks to avoid just so I don’t have to face the horrible smell when I go into it.  I really don’t know how Subway gets that smell.  It’s as if somebody took some loaves of bread and threw them in a well used public pool and then rescued them and put them in a towel and kept them under heat lamps for hours on end.  Subway has always liked to tout its bread, but, well, if you’ve ever made bread yourself, you surely sure as hell do know that it does NOT smell like that.

Well, it’s all too bad.  Once upon a time, a person could get a decent sandwich just about anywhere for a price commensurate with what actually goes into the preparation and sale of a sandwich.  But Subway has helped to wreck that option, and they’re making sure you know, using every conceivable marketing platform available.  So the next time you feel cool for spending $10 on a sandwich you could make yourself for a fraction of the cost, just remember, you’re not just buying a sandwich, you’re buying ad space.