Watching football today, I saw an odd spot for Subway. We see B&W images of hurricane victims and a solemn voice-over saying how Subway will donate an upcoming day’s profits to hurricane victims.
You can see a :15 version of the spot at Subway’s web site where it says “Hurricane Relief Efforts.”
It’s all perfectly tasteful until the last line of the spot comes. The VO says:
“Because it’s tough to pick up the pieces when they’ve all blown away.”
Now, like a lot of copywriters, I was taught that the last line of copy should always have a little extra zing, or wrap-up nicely, or whatever you want to call it.
But this one just creeped me out, for some reason. What do y’all think?
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Bad pun, extra bad because it tries to play off a disaster.
Leaves a bad taste in my mouth too.
They might as well have gone for some kind of rhyming pun-couplet:
“Because it’s tough to stay afloat when your house is accessible only by boat.”
Like it or not, it is what took place. Some people are simply too sensitive and others look for the smallest item to show how they think they are smarter than others.
I like it. Granted, I haven’t seen the commercial, so maybe the line loses something in context. But rather than trivializing the tragedy by reducing it to a clever tagline, I think it sums up the magnitude of the devastation in a simple yet compelling way.