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Don’t be Phil Rankin
By Todd | April 6, 2007
Everyone knows of Jared Fogle, the Subway celebrity who lost 200+ pounds but do you know Phil Rankin? If Phil had his way, Jared’s incredible weight-loss story would have never escaped the school paper at Indiana University.
Phil was the new marketing director for Subway corporate and when Jared’s story was pitched by his ad agency, he turned it down. Phil said “I’ve seen that before… we can’t do healthy.”
Maybe Phil didn’t like that the idea was actually discovered by a franchisee who pitched the idea to Subway’s ad agency. But the franchisee and the ad agency wouldn’t let the story die. A few regional franchisees pooled money together and the ad agency agreed to actually cover the production expenses! Phil Rankin reluctantly agreed to let it air in the small territory. The day after the ads ran, Subway was fielding calls from USA Today, CNN and national morning shows.
There are three key lessons for startups to learn here:
1- Ideas inside your company (no matter how small) don’t always come from those in meetings.
2- A good story can beat a good marketing slogan (Phil wanted “7 under 6″ for 7 sandwiches under 6 grams of fat)
3- Go buy the outstanding biz book, Made To Stick to read the entire story and learn how to make your ideas stick
So where is Phil Rankin now? Although, Phil isn’t his real name… based on his track record, I doubt we’ll ever find out!
Topics: Miscellaneous, Books |
