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Subway, Diet Coke Team On Taylor Swift Promo

by Karlene Lukovitz @KLmarketdaily, September 27, 2014

Subway is teaming with Diet Coke to offer Taylor Swift fans a sweeps and exclusive video content around the Oct. 27 release of her latest album, "1989."

The #MeetTaylor campaign includes a sweeps (Oct. 1-Nov. 15) offering daily drawings for a total of 46 trips-for-two to attend a concert and meet Swift during her 2015 tour. There are also 46 first prizes of packages that include a Taylor Swift guitar with a replica signature and other Swift swag. Entry is limited to U.S. residents 13 or older.

Fans can enter by purchasing a limited-edition, Swift-branded 30-ounce Diet Coke cup bearing a code, and entering the code on Subway.com, or scanning it by using Subway's Freshbuzz App. Those that use the free, downloadable mobile app — a portal for Subway news and celebrity content — will get an extra entry and access to the exclusive Swift video content, which will be refreshed weekly during October.

In the U.S., Subway is promoting the campaign in-restaurant and through TV, radio, social media and online channels that reach the Millennials who make up Swift's fan base.

The sweeps promotion that's taken over Subway's homepage also offers a link to Swift's site to preorder the album. In addition, Subway is promoting the album's release in its campaign marketing materials.

Swift, the best-selling digital music artist of all time, signed a long-term brand ambassador deal with Diet Coke in January 2013, which included the brand's being a sponsor of her tour for her last album, "Red." Swift's other brand partners in promoting that album included Papa John's, as well as Target, Walgreens, Keds, CoverGirl and Elizabeth Arden.

Diet Coke is expected to roll out more marketing timed around the new Swift album in coming weeks, as is Keds, and Target will offer a deluxe-edition exclusive, reports Billboard.

In its press release for the #MeetTaylor campaign, Subway is stressing that it's now the world's largest QSR in terms of number of locations. A banner at the top of its site boasts that the chain now has 42,743 restaurants in 108 countries.

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3 comments about "Subway, Diet Coke Team On Taylor Swift Promo".

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Nicole Baron Dietrich from Arizona State, September 29, 2014 at 2:11 a.m.
Subway teaming up with Diet Coke makes for a power duo, and adding a big name like Taylor Swift into the mix provides the perfect trifecta for successful marketing. Subway and Diet Coke are very well known and trusted brand names, and they have a plethora of loyal customers. Taylor Swift is a huge country and pop singer of the millennial generation and she has a huge fan base. Combining all three of these big names will help to market this campaign tremendously. I’m assuming the target demographics are teenage girls ages 13-19. I wonder how this comes in to play for this sweeps? Taylor Swift’s music is most commonly listened to by females, so it is safe to assume the majority of people that enter into this sweeps will be female. The use of a hash-tag will help the brands to promote the sweeps and campaign via social media. Coming up with one key hash-tag that is easy to remember and best sums up the idea behind the campaign will allow for the brands to increase interaction within social media. They chose to use #MeetTaylor, which seems to fit the sweeps objective of helping fans to meet Taylor Swift. The fact that the brands can market themselves as well as promote Swift’s new album is a win-win. I’m curious if this campaign is an international one? Subway is proud to announce that they have 42,743 stores in 108 different countries, so they should definitely take advantage of the worldwide opportunity to promote themselves, as well as Diet Coke and Taylor Swift.
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Stone Zuber from ASU, September 29, 2014 at 4:12 p.m.

Wow, If Taylor Swift wasn’t powerful enough on her own, she now has a power duo of Subway and Diet Coke to back her. This promotion is a steaming hot way to get their fans’ attention and hop on the wagon with her new album. Not only is their 46 possible spots to win a trip-for-two to attend a concert and meet the famous Taylor Swift herself, but there are also 46 first prize packages that include a Taylor Swift guitar with a replica signature. Taylor is a pure genius when it comes to marketing herself and her brand, there’s nothing that can stand in this chicks way when it comes to business and success.
You can enter Taylor’s promo by buying a “limited-edition, Swift-branded 30-ounce Diet Coke cup bearing a code which can be entered on Subway.com, or by entering it on the Subway app which opens it’s contesters to more exclusive offers and an extra entry. Swift is quite swift, along with her promotion taking over the entire Subway page, she offers a link where you can pre-order her new album.
One thing I do worry about is the contest allowing ages 13 and older. I wonder how this will affect Swift’s younger fans? Most of T-Swift’s fans and young girls and I anticipate they will be disappointed that they cannot enter in the contest. On another note, this promo could be advertised more, I wouldn’t have heard about it if I hadn’t come across it on here. I advise some new advertising techniques that are more social media oriented like Instagram and Twitter.

Nina Marcussen from Vaclav Havel Czech School of Dallas, November 11, 2014 at 3:43 a.m.

I am appalled by Taylor Swift's choice of helping to target such young audience with something so unhealthy as 30 oz. diet drink promoted in a "healthy sub" joint. I am surprised that she let the industry use her like this. Everyone who has a basic biology education understands what diet drinks do to a human thyroid and what serious health consequences this poses when you "teach" a whole new generation that it is OK to drink this much soda because it is "sugar free". With the "power" behind the marketing machine that you are mentioning in the comments above, do you ever stop and think for a minute what it is you are promoting? I am really concern and it is not about the contest or children's disappointment. I am seriously concerned about duping young innocent people into a life long habit of drinking diet drinks thinking it is a healthy choice. For many of them this will end up with a rude awakening to a failed thyroid or worse. I am really disappointed in Ms. Taylor Swift.