Subway Madness

On Saturday, AdAge reported that Agency.com pulled out of the pitch for Subway's online business, citing a potential conflict that came up as a result of Subway's delayed decision.

Agency.com, you'll remember, was skewered by bloggers and agencies for the execution of a new business pitch for Subway, which was broadcast and parodied on YouTube and elsewhere. Some of the criticism is justified, but some of it (especially the parodies) were just plain ugly. For its part, Subway just seems happy for all the publicity, as it cost them nothing.

I personally think Agency.com is getting a bad rap from the deal. The people who made the video did not have to put it online, as the project did not call for it. They had no revenue on this project to pay for the setup and production, so they dared to go out on a limb, take a leap, and see if the idea had wings.

The easiest thing in the world to do is to be the person who hates everything--and who never takes responsibility to come up with a better solution. As bloggers commenting on the world around us, we can fall into that trap without even thinking about it. But at the end of the day, if all we know is what we hate, in a situation that has infinite possibilities, we will have learned nothing practical.

So what can we learn by what Agency.com did right?

There are many ways to gather information about a company--such as surveys, focus groups, stakeholder interviews, and secondary research. Ignoring the production of the video itself, the methods Agency.com used to get its head around Subway demonstrated an unparalleled commitment that I can't help but admire.

According to IDEO and Toyota, among others, those who want to get a complete understanding of how something works have to see it firsthand. In the interactive world, that often means we have to see how the intended audience uses the Web. We can get that through surveys, books, and articles on best practices. But in many cases, we also should see how the product is navigated, used, what criteria actual customers use to make buying decisions (both physically and virtually), as well as what limitations we're operating in because of the existing business systems.

Some of that can be gathered by stakeholder interviews, and that alone would have made a huge difference. But living in a day in the life as an employee? That shows an admirable commitment to get the job done right. - Cam Beck

Comments

[Michael Seaton]

Yes, they took a chance and dared to be risky. Yes, they were smart to learn about Subway in a smart way. Yes, bloggers had a field day with this.

The fundamental problem was a lack of understanding of the viral space. Yet, they propelled themselves into it using Subway as their meal ticket.

From a project management standpoint (to your IDEO point) , they seemed ill-prepared for the response (i.e. the blog that was posted AFTER the video started getting critiqued AND the "staged" positive comments on YouTube registrants who just so happened to open/register accounts on the same day that Agency.com registered themselves. Firsthand experience learning is vital, but they failed to do upfront prerequisite planning about going viral. Teh bases were not covered.

ADC's backend "CYA" manouvers were defensive after the fact knee-jerky reactions. And were kind of smug.

Not to mention the video itself. I have agree with Steve Hall of Adrants on that point.

Then they pull out? Why bother in the first place. A conflict should have been know well in advance.

Yes, it is easier to tear something apart then to build - and bloggers went to town on this perhaps too harshly. For myself, it just smacked of using Subway to make a name for themselves.

At best this was all a stunt.