A Musical Journey: From Music Search to Bespoke Re-Record

“There’s two kinds of people in the world. Those who like to create and those who like creation. To mark the momentous arrival of the new Subway Series, we’re going to launch the menu that will divide the nation. There are two kinds of people in this world, so there’s now two ways to Subway.

The question is… which way are you?”

This was the very first introduction to the new Subway Series campaign and the starting point for our music brief.

The intention was to spark a conversation, or moreover, a fiery debate to divide the nation. 

How can we find a track that hints at a divide and spark a debate while also feeling positive, fun  & even a bit contradictory - galvanising?

In addition to the above - a song with a lyrical hint and a tune that also isn’t ubiquitous across other advertisements? 

A challenge indeed, and a challenge accepted. 

For our first round search, we delivered a grand mix of older, vintage songs such as ‘Dare To Be Different’ by Donovan or the Noughties pop throwback ‘Can I Have It Like That’ by Pharrell and Gwen Stefani.
This variety at the start opened up new areas of thinking for the agency and brand. But do we need a track that’s a bit more current?

Could ‘Little Bit Of this’ by Central Cee be a connector? Or infectious ‘That’s What I Want’ by Lil Nas X? Maybe…

Every project has a ‘wildcard moment’. Let me explain: At some point it's necessary to forget everything you have been doing to date and try something new. Or sometimes (like in this case), take a step back and look at the brief from a different perspective.

Our wildcard (in what was supposed to be a current music only round) - was ‘War’ by Edwin Starr. This set pulses racing and it became clear we had found the song.

The lyrical message was spot on.

The next step was to create an instrumental re-record of the track. It needed to be vibrant, interesting and totally different while bringing in contemporary elements that indexes with the brand.

We turned to MNKN (Jamie Shields), one of the best in his field for contemporary compositions who has the ability to make grittier urban beats fall perfectly in line with previous Subway campaigns.

It wouldn't be advertising without a tight deadline; we reached out to a group of brass experts who kindly took on the task over a lunch break to work with our schedule. MNKN did not disappoint either, and we had a first demo within 24 hours - including live brass!

From this point on it was only a few rounds of tweaks needed to make sure we had a fresh, new and balanced sound - and off it went to the client.

Within 48 hours we had our final approved demo, worked onto the edits with a brilliant end result. Big thanks to the whole team at Saatchi for bringing us along on this musical journey!

The main campaign is live for the next 6 months, along with a few other sub campaigns including - Love Island ‘My Order On Paper’.