When Sandwiches Duel

We've all seen those commercials that star people on the street as taste-testers. A person is blind folded or the brand name of the product is hidden, and they get taste two products to see which is better. Then the product name is revealed and it's usually the underdog brand, who claims its superior taste. Pepsi did a lot of this to show its resounding preferred taste over Coca-Cola products. We've also seen the user-generated videos that have made it to commercial stardom. Consumer brands like Doritos, Dove, Toyota and Heinz have run promotions of this sort because "they generate publicity, usually at a low cost to the advertiser", and can lead to some nobody making a clever commercial. So what do you get when you mix the competitive taste-testing with user-generated content together? A rivalry between Quiznos and Subway to see who is the meatiest of them all.

The toasted sandwich chain created a contest online at a site Quiznos had set up called meatnomeat.com, as well as on iFilm that would invite the public to create commercials that would show Quiznos sandwiches superior to Subways.

It's all in competitive fun right, the rivalry between Pepsi and Coca-Cola, Miller Lite and Bud Lite, Colgate and Crest. Personally, I think the bashed brand still gets a little advertising time by having its name shown. But not to Subway. They're suing Quiznos and iFilm, owned by Viacom, claiming that these ads contained “literally false statements” and depicted Subway in a “disparaging manner.” They're also suing for the ads Quiznos itself created that show passer-bys choosing Quiznos over Subway.

So companies are always suing each other over ad disputes but what about the video contest. Should Quiznos really be sued for what other people created if they just facilitated what costumers already express? They did provoke it and give incentive, but what happens to user-generated video contests like this? This was a short-lived fad that, if Subway wins, will surely be killed off.

At least Quiznos finally got smart and realized that any ads they produced were at best horrible and tried something new. This is better than the talking baby or whatever THIS is:Yes, anything is better than THAT.