Subway's 🥪 major move
Subway's 🥪 major move
How 1 employee is making subs for millions. The rise of employee UGC 📈
A while back we stumbled upon @miladfromsubway’s TikTok account and were pretty…impressed…by his content. Impressed, confused, or just intrigued, we followed him anyway 🤷.
Milad makes sandwiches. In every video. He’s a Subway employee and just films himself talking and making sandwiches for every single video. So why are we writing home about it?
Have it the Sub-way
Finally, after 7 months of creating content, Milad finally got sponsored by Subway. But here’s why it matters:
Milad started making content on August 27th, 2020. Starting around 8,000 followers, he’s now up to 2.6M, and averaging over 1M views on his videos.
And 1.6M of those have come in the last month alone.
His original videos all showed him filming orders that TikTok viewers would comment on. Here’s a video of The Tampa Bay Rays Subway order he made (check the comments to see some other creators/teams orders):
Now, the comment section and his videos have pretty much turned into a Q&A about his experiences at Subway. You’ll find Subway hacks, funny stories and interesting questions and answers in each of the 4 daily videos he uploads. By the way, we now feel it’s relevant to share that Milad is 21 years old and finishing his last semester in school :)
Granted, this account is generally a pretty positive source of user-generated content. As we’ve seen from other creators, sometimes employee UGC can take a turn for the worse.
So what’s the news?
FINALLY, after 7 months, Subway decided to sponsor Milad. They’re teaming up to showcase fan subs, encouraging viewers to leave their orders in the comments.
Here’s why this matters:
1. Employee UGC is becoming increasingly important for brands to acknowledge, engage with, and promote.
We LOVE getting the inside scoop on jobs, lifestyles (when will David Dobrik finally make his vlog??), and pretty much anything that will let us put ourselves in someone’s shoes. So much for social media pushing us apart…
2. Subway shows they care about their workers.
While there are certainly other things that we expect from a massive company like Subway, a good starting place is showing love to the employees that show love to you. Gen Z cares about how corporations treat their employees. If only Dunkin' saw what their employees have been up to on TikTok…
How does this apply to other brands and what can I do about it?
Encouraging your employees to generate their own content is not just for QSR brands like Subway, Dunkin’, etc. It’s for every single company, big or small. Not only are we more conscious buyers, but we’re becoming more and more conscious about where we want to work. After all, the majority of Gen Z are on the verge of entering the workforce, if not already in it.
As we mentioned before, however, it’s important to remember the two sides of the coin on this topic. We spoke again with Matt Klein, Director of Strategy at sparks & honey, who has a cautionary piece of advice for brands considering engaging with their employee UGC:
This is still a dangerous space for brands as these documenting employees may not be the most trustworthy or qualified public representatives of the company. Typically these videos are dangerous as resentful employees can easily damage a brand's hard-earned reputation. All it takes is one captured unsanitary action or lewd remark to stain the brand. With that said, it's noteworthy to watch Subway actively lean in.
Yet with the growth of creators like Milad, brands will see a rise in this kind of content whether they choose to engage or not. Fortunately, there is a fool-proof way to ensure that the employee UGC is positive: treat your employees well :)
That’s it for this week’s issue of The Loop, we hope you enjoyed it! Special thanks (again!) to Matt Klein from the cultural consultancy sparks & honey for some additional insight here.
If you have not yet shared this with every person you know, what are you waiting for? haha jk…unless? Either way, our goal is to educate people on Gen Z by getting them in The Loop. If you think someone should read this, send it their way!