Agency.com's Subway Crash

My most recent memory of Subway, was more than a year ago, and having a very um, uncomfortable afternoon after lunching on their Classic Tuna sub. Thankfully, that’s been replaced by something equally uncomfortable. Agency.com’s on-spec pitch to be Subway agency-of-record.

Other reaction from the blog/ad world:

Steve Rubel: “[Agency.com] set their entire credibility in the social media space back eons and maybe did the same for other interactive agencies.”

Bjoern Ognibeni: “Unfortunately what they have produced looks like one of the worst episodes of the “The Apprentice” mixed with the classic “Truth in Advertising” clip – sadly without any trace of irony.”

AdRants: “Everyone in the industry needs to watch this. Not because it’s good but because it makes ad agency people look dumb and sound really stupid.”

Paul Adams: “Finally, it does show that Agency.com couldn’t deliver a clear message and meet the 5 minute brief. They used almost double the time – with no clear message.”

My favorite is Coudal Partner’s video response.

On the other hand, bloggers are now talking about Agency.com and Subway together. Both parties have public, measurable data on seeding del.icio.us, YouTube, and Technorati with marketing messages in an inexpensive way (whatever 3 days of Agency.com’s team cost…I’m guessing north of $30,000).

Here’s the “official” weblog: When We Roll, We Roll Big

UPDATE 25 Aug 2006: Agency.com pulls out of the running