I noticed the other day that Subway had an advertisement on Yahoo for a Subway Scrabble game so I decided to take a look. It’s a game similar to McDonalds Monopoly game where you collect pieces to win instant prizes or build your letters to collect bigger prizes. It’s an interesting ploy from a company that got rid of a perfectly good sales pitch with the Subway Club card several years ago, and it makes me wonder what exactly the marketing gurus are thinking over at their corporate.

I’ve always liked Subway, I subsisted mostly on meatball subs all through college, but with current trends in fast food quickly filling up the market with restaurant chains such as Jimmy Johns, Quiznos, Milios and with the decreasing popularity of the health food trend, it seems like the niche that Subway once held as the number one growing fast food chain in America has diminished, leaving them a mature company at a crossroads.

Looking back, when fast food restaurants reach mature status, only one of two things happens; either the company figures out a way to re-market and re-brand like McDonalds did several years ago, or it stumbles like Burger King, Hardies, or Little Ceasars; companies that either lacked a real brand identity or that have near completely disappeared due to disparities in their business model.

Looking at the Subway website, www.subwayfreshbuzz.com, and watching the commercials on television, Subway is closer to the McDonalds model than any of the others. Subway definitely knows it’s market with Jared and the Subway Card (a subway debit card for the college crowd) but the Scrabble Game is an obvious attempt to bring itself into the realm of McDonalds, and to do that they will need a larger marketing presence than they’ve had in the last few years.

They’ve lost that pop and pizzazz that you used to feel when Adam danced around the counter as he changed outfits, or when Jared first told us he’d lost several sizes eating their product. If Subway wants to continue to succeed, it needs that next big thing to keep them in the limelight.

Update: Viral Subway