The Subway Sub Soared, But Quiznos Was Too Heavy to Kick

Ad agencies are coming up with rich sources of quality content and ideas…and Quizno Subs is getting sued by Subway over their agency’s latest idea…allow users to submit videos attacking their competitor’s sandwiches. I laughed out loud when I read the topics of some of the 115 videos sent in trying to claim the $10,000 prize. The New York Times had the story.

“One of the videos shows a wife arriving home with a Quiznos sub for her husband, and a Subway sandwich for the dog. . One showed two submarine fashioned as sandwiches, with the one representing Subway being obliterated because it did not have enough meat. In a third two men punt sandwiches across a parking lot, the Subway one soars high, the Quiznos one is so heavy that the man falls over when he kicks it.

When the suit was first brought up to Quiznos and their agency, they claimed the same exemption from legal action that YouTube, that user generated content is protected because of the Communications Decency Act, which immunizers ‘providers of interactive computer services from responsibility for user postings on their sites…the same way AOL says they’re not liable for the scurrilious things people say about each other in its chat rooms.

At the root of Subway’s beef is that their competitor egged contestants on to slam them in their homemade ads. If Subway wins, there will be new rules on the wild frontier of home-styled product attack ads.