When we travel to see my brothers and sister and in-laws and nieces and nephews, we usually stop at a Subway for lunch.
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Chuck Robinson
Assistant Copy Chief |
Each time I am amazed at how much produce they will pile on my sandwich. Cucumber slices, even. Awesome.
This trip I saw a sign for sandwiches for diabetic customers — the rolls are scooped out so there are fewer carbs to throw them into diabetic shock. Wow, what a great commitment to serving healthful food. This restaurant is along a rural byway, and the farm couples were lined up with us.
Jared Fogle, of course, the longtime Subway dieter and spokesman, has come to represent the chain and its owners, Milford, Conn.-based Doctor’s Associates Inc.
By comparison, Taco Bell’s Christine Dougherty comes off as less genuine. She is featured in ads promoting the Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet. Like Jared, she also has dieted and lost weight, but she was eating some of her meals off Taco Bell’s Fresco menu.
I saw her ads in the early part of the year, along about the time the New Year’s resolutions were paining my consciousness.
Skip the cheese and sour cream and add salsa, as suggested with the seven-item Fresco menu — that’s a good start, but it falls far sort of the commitment to more healthful eating comparable to Subway. The comparison Taco Bell drew to itself by running the ads sounded hollow.
Check out Taco Bell’s Drive Thru Diet online and it will tell you that Fresco items are “not a low-calorie food.”
Taco Bell says in its advertising on television and online that the Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet “isn’t a weight-loss program” even though the campaign has “diet” in its name.
The touted Taco Bell success story said she cut her caloric intake to 1,250 calories per day and in two years she lost 54 pounds. This woman has a steel will. It is tough to get the Mayo Clinic calorie counter to go that low.
At least Jared’s initial weight loss seemed attainable. He lost 245 pounds in 11 months, and no sit ups were involved — and he didn’t have to change his regimen much, just keep eating sandwiches.
What’s more, while Christine knocked on Taco Bell’s door suggesting herself as a spokeswoman, not so with Jared.
He saw some health information at a Subway and decided to make a change for himself. A former dorm mate of Fogle’s at Indiana University wrote a story about his accomplishment for the Indiana Daily Student in 1999.
That article sparked another writer to craft an article for Men’s Health on wacky diets that work. Then a Chicago-area Subway franchisee picked up on the story and sent it to Subway’s marketing brain trust.
January was the 10-year anniversary of the first Subway ad featuring Jared.
It isn’t just me who thinks this Taco Bell ad campaign has a tinny sound. Advertising Age, in an article posted on AdAge.com in early February, says the online buzz about the Taco Bell “diet” had soured what people thought of the restaurant chain.
The article quotes data from Zeta Buzz, which mines blogs, message boards and social media postings to measure buzz about a subject.
Zeta Buzz said Taco Bell blew its 73% positive rating among bloggers and other online commentators. While before the words associated with Taco Bell were “love,” “delicious” and “favorite,” after the Drive-Thru Diet campaign started the words buzzing around in association with the Bell turned to “fat,” “stop” and “joke.”
Ouch.
By the way, what a great fit for Subway in late 2009 to sign one of the contestants from the NBC TV series “The Biggest Loser” as a spokeswoman.
Shay Sorrells was the heaviest contestant in the show’s history, weighing 476 pounds. By early December’s season finale, she had lost 172 pounds.
Under her deal with Subway, she will get $1,000 for every pound she loses through the Season 9 finale in May, according to promomagazine.com.
The Bell of Taco Bell
I was hesitant to unload on the Taco Bell Drive-Thru diet because of the Jan. 16 death of Glen Bell, the “Bell” in Taco Bell. He was 86.
The first Taco Bell opened in 1962 in Downey, Calif. Others seemed to grasp the idea of a quick-service taco in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Some of them were one-time partners of Bell’s. Bell had the drive to expand and franchise. He also came up with the pre-formed taco shell.
The Los Angeles Times ran a great obituary. It turns out that, though produce isn’t overflowing on Taco Bell fare, its founder had produce roots.
A child during the Great Depression, Bell and his family were close to agriculture, living on a small farm in Oregon and later near San Bernardino, Calif., on a 10-acre orchard.
The close-to-the-earth upbringing found resonance in another venture of Bell’s, Bell Gardens, which he created in 1963, according to the LA Times obituary.
It was a 115-acre model produce farm in Valley Center, Calif., north of San Diego, that sold pumpkins and other crops to the public.
“Wander through the fields and down rows of towering vegetable plants and fruit trees, then take the train ride that chugs around the perimeter of the farm. Be sure to stop off at the produce stand to sample some of the fruits,” says an out-of-date tourist Web site.
Bell Gardens closed in 2003, having been turned in to a nonprofit organization that was unable to raise funds to sustain itself.
I’m sorry I didn’t make it to Bell Gardens, and I am sorry I never met its founder. Glen Bell must have been one in a million. His Taco Bell concept was focused on cheap food fast.
If it had included cheap, healthful food chock full of produce, he really would have changed the world for the better.
E-mail crobinson@thepacker.com
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