---
title: "Subway’s New Ad Campaign Targeting McDonald’s Plays Poorly on Social Media"
url: https://burnaze.com/article/5dbd70e5-948a-4771-bd06-e84cc62271cd
source: "1851 Franchise"
original_url: https://1851franchise.com/subways-new-ad-campaign-targeting-mcdonalds-plays-poorly-on-social-media-2707903
category: "Restaurants"
industry: "Restaurants"
topics: ["Marketing"]
published: 2018-09-20T20:15:01.000Z
modified: 2026-11-01T02:33:54.813Z
image: https://newimage.1851franchise.com/cdn-cgi/image/quality=85,format=webp,width=1280,height=720/story/featureImage/6936477802e3bd280e6c951b7097c35e4399.jpg
---

# Subway’s New Ad Campaign Targeting McDonald’s Plays Poorly on Social Media

**TL;DR:** Subway launched an ad campaign targeting McDonald's, but received negative social media response. The brand's chief advertising officer Chris Carroll said they are encouraged by the responses despite the backlash.

*originally published in 1851 Franchise on 2018-09-20. [Read the original](https://1851franchise.com/subways-new-ad-campaign-targeting-mcdonalds-plays-poorly-on-social-media-2707903).*

## Story

In the midst of poor sales and a drop in unit count, Subway is taking aim at McDonald’s in a new ad campaign, urging people to break their fast food routine and ditch burgers. A Business Insider article detailed the social media response to the ad, which ranges from users expressing annoyance at the high-pitched background voice repeating “burger” at an increasingly faster speed, to those expressing the ad just made them crave McDonald’s.

Though Subway’s Twitter account has begun apologizing to users who have expressed their dissatisfaction with the ad, the brand’s chief advertising officer Chris Carroll told Business Insider, “Overall, we're very encouraged by the responses we've seen so far."

## Entities

- 1851 Franchise (publication)
- Restaurants (sector)
- McDonald's (company)
- Twitter (company)
- Subway (company)
- fast food (topic)
- ad campaign (topic)
- unit count (topic)
- social media response (topic)

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Originally reported by 1851 Franchise (https://1851franchise.com/subways-new-ad-campaign-targeting-mcdonalds-plays-poorly-on-social-media-2707903). Summarized by Burnaze (https://burnaze.com/article/5dbd70e5-948a-4771-bd06-e84cc62271cd).