Saturday, April 7, 2007

Ovens, surprisingly, can be a competitive advantage

A few years ago Quiznos started running ads that called out Subway for serving cold sandwiches. There were tons of TV ads interviewing people who, magically, all agreed that hot sandwiches were the only way to go. The ads implied that you were a fool for eating the cold, Jared-endorsed sandwiches at Subway. This always struck me as a strange tactic by Quiznos, because "heat" didn't seem like a big moat for Subway to cross. It's not like an oven is a piece of patented technology that can't be replicated.

Sure enough, Subway responded. With ovens.

That said, after several years of eating (toasted) sandwiches at both establishments I think the battle has been won by Quiznos. Granted, Subway has a better selection of sandwiches, but their toaster ovens are fancy microwaves rather than traditional ovens, thus making their toasted bread quiet chewy. And I'm not down with chewy.

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