BIG BUZZ OVER QUIZNOS CREATURES

Publish date: 2024-05-04

IT’S not just you. Those creepy ads for Quiznos’ Subs featuring two shrieking, bug-eyed, creatures that sing about sandwiches are weird and even slightly disturbing.

But they could turn out to be the most effective and catchy commercials of the year.

“We love the subs! Coz they are good to us,” yelps a tiny-footed fur-ball wearing a black derby cap, while a second one in an antique captain’s hat floats behind it strumming a guitar.

“The Quiznos subs. They are tasty, they are crunchy, they are warm because they toast them.” And then the punchline: “They got a pepper bar!”

The commercial is simple, effective and probably the most talked-about ad since an Internet company appeared to blast live hansters out of a cannon at a painted red target.

“We’re not mainstream,” said Quiznos spokeswoman Stacie Lange. “We’re more of a scrappy organization that likes to be doing things that are a little off center.”

Lange said the franchise has about 2,700 fast food sandwich shops, with 38 in the metro-area, 10 of which are in Manhattan. But that’s relatively small compared to McDonalds, Burger King and Wendys.

“So we wanted to do something humorous that caught people’s attention, and we needed to deliver an ad that was going to break through the clutter,” she said.

The ad was produced by the Virginia-based Martin Agency, but the strange creatures – called Spongmonkeys (pronounced: spung-monkees) – were found on a British Web site, rathergood.com, run by a Internet artist named Joel Veitch.

Although it looks like a rodent, the Spongmonkey is actually a picture of a South American monkey, probably a Marmoset, that’s had its mouth and eyes altered and animated by a computer program.

An executive at the Martin Agency discovered them when they appeared in an irreverent Web animation called “We Like the Moon” that was sent to the agency via e-mail.

“They’re not animals, they’re characters,” said Lange, explaining why the restaurant chain took the risk of producing an ad featuring small furry creatures hovering over their sandwiches.

“It’s not as if we’re putting a specific animal on the screen eating food or around food, it’s a Web animation,” she said.

The ads started airing in early February on cable channels, Lange said.

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