Clever partnership marketing from Subway
As befitting the world’s largest restaurant chain with over 3,500 stores and growing (they over took McDonalds some time ago) Subway also lead the way with an aggressive partnership marketing program that focuses on energy, gaming, sport and healthy living.
In Singapore Subway have teamed up with the Health Promotion Board to help communicate healthy living. It’s an innovative partnership which benefits both brands. You don’t naturally associate Subway with healthy brands values, (their footlong meatball marinara certainly isn’t but is very tasty!) but they actually have healthy wraps and salads that the need to create greater awareness of and gaining the Singapore government’s health arm to do so is a great positive endorsement.
Healthy living with Subway
The campaign is all about inspiring Singapore residents to share the joys a healthy living can bring, all together. Nestle’s high energy chocolate drink, Milo, a real favourite in offices across Singapore for Singaporeans, is the other principle partner.
Subway and MTV Networks have also forged a partnership to bring emerging artists, comedians and musicians to a wider audience through a digital marketing program being promoted as “Subway Fresh Buzz.”
Sony and Subway working together synergistically
In 2010 Subway kicked off a Sony Playstation partnership as they teamed up for the Fiery Footlong Frenzy fueled by PlayStation program. Codes were given away in Subway and people could access different levels of the game and attack people with a footlong Sub in the game itself as well as wil Sony prizes every minute. Great branding, if very male!
That gaming promotion partnership clearly worked so well for both brands that it must have led to Subway teaming up with them again for Uncharted 3 for a brand new promotion just unleashed. Subway customers will be able to preview a hotly anticipated PlayStation game one month before its release as part of a promotional deal between the sandwich chain and Sony Computer Entertainment America. Dubbed “Taste for Adventure,” the promotion allows each Subway customer who purchases a 30-ounce drink in a specially marked cup to obtain a code printed on the cup that lets them enter at Subway.com.
Customers will then be presented with a PlayStation Network code to download the multiplayer portion of “Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception,” a video game that will be released publicly on Nov. 1. There is some great if completely out of context in game branding as part of the partnership. These days you could argue Subway were the larger global brand while Sony it still the number one in Asia and they are targeting the same target audience so it makes partnership marketing sense.
In game branding is crude but effective
Subway recently created a partnership with The Green Lantern, creating special meals and giving away great film benefits as well giving the film millions of dollars worth of free publicity in all stores and in all marketing. It continues the theming of activeness and energy which are common amongst all Subway partnerships (even if the gaming ones are done sitting down……).
Film partnerships work as well as gaming ones for Subway
Subway created a cause marketing partnership with the American College of Cardiology (ACC) CardioSmart National Care Initiative which promotes awareness and heart healthiness. As part of the relationship with the ACC, Subway restaurants will support the CardioSmart National Care Initiative, a patient-centered campaign to engage people to play an active role in their own heart health and empower them to make better lifestyle choices.
Sponsorships are also big with Subway and they mirror the partnership strategy with the recent announcement that Subway will continue its partnership with NBC to highlight the brand during season 12 of The Biggest Loser. This communicates the brand values of healthy and activeness while also squashing the negative ones and creates awareness for their low cal range.
Subway in the US also created a multi-platform deal with NBC covering the network’s NFL and NHL telecasts. Subway endorsers Michael Phelps and Jared Fogle starred in co-branded promo segments in 2010. Subway sponsored NBC’s “Football Night In America”. Throughout the NFL season, Subway’s “Fresh Take” features will highlight specific football players during “SNF” broadcasts, and the brand will have a presence on NBC’s online effort “Sunday Night Football Extra.” Subway also will sponsor NHL Game of the Week intermission reports and will make a series of “Fresh Take” features available during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
Read more: http://chrisreed.brandrepublic.com/2011/10/12/subway%e2%80%99s-active-partnership-marketing-energises-consumers/#ixzz1aXXILUmD
