Is being anti-American now a selling point … in America? Subway’s corporate office apparently thinks so, as it has run advertisements featuring purple-haired, Anthem-kneeler soccer player Megan Rapinoe. But many of its franchisees state otherwise, saying they want the ads pulled because they’re getting serious customer blowback and threats of boycotts.
What’s more, the controversial, customer-alienating commercials are financed with the franchisees’ own money, as they’re forced to contribute 4.5 percent of their revenue to a national advertising fund — controlled by the corporate office.
Rapinoe, 36, has long been the face of the United States women’s national soccer team (USWNT), which has become infamous for kneeling during the National Anthem, a behavior it has continued at the Olympics in Tokyo. It’s a disrespectful act so unwelcome in patriotic circles that many Americans were happy when the USWNT got thumped in its Olympic opener against Sweden 3-0 (which is, notably, as badly as they lost to those 14-year-old boys four years back).
And it follows that if many Americans want to see Rapinoe lose, they may also want to see a company with her as its face lose. Yet Subway has nonetheless had the aging athlete, known for her hostility toward President Trump and her wokester politics, representing their brand since April.
In one ad (video below), Rapinoe is seen kicking a soccer ball and knocking a burrito out of a man’s hand and then telling him to have a Subway hero instead.
The ad is clever enough and would be fine if it featured a more palatable star. But in this case, writes the New York Post, the
response has been mixed, according to franchisees. Late last month on a discussion forum hosted by the North American Association of Subway Franchisees [NAASF], a Wisconsin store operator posted a picture of a hand-scrawled note from an irate customer taped to the front door of his shop.
“Boycott Subway until Subway fires the anti-American … Megan Rapinoe, the creep who kneels for our beloved National Anthem!” the note read.
“The ad should be pulled and done with,” the franchisee wrote of the Rapinoe spot. “It gets tiring apologizing.”
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Of course, it’s obvious when recruiting a politically active figure that the response will be “mixed,” as those agreeing with the individual will be pleased and those disagreeing will be disgruntled. But smart marketing involves avoiding advertising guaranteed to bring “mixed” responses.
That this means avoiding politics was reflected in the franchisee complaints. For example, an “Arizona owner said on the NAASF blog: ‘Spending our money to make a political statement is completely and totally out of bounds,’” reports the Daily Mail.
For good or ill, however, Subway certainly is getting exposure — including courtesy of a most high-profile figure: President Trump. He “issued a statement mocking Rapinoe for failing to bring [home] the gold,” the Mail also relates.
“‘The woman with the purple hair played terribly and spends too much time thinking about Radical Left politics and not doing her job,’ he said — comments which Rapinoe called ‘sad,’” the paper continues. “Rapinoe famously said in 2019 she would not go to the ‘f****** White House’ to celebrate winning the World Cup when Trump was in office.” Classy.
Of course, Subway is just continuing a notable pattern wherein corporate America is increasingly going “woke” and, say critics, going broke. Razor producer Gillette told its customers in 2019 to shave their “toxic masculinity” and perhaps shaved their profits in the process. Coca-Cola instituted mandatory training in which its employees were told to “try and be less white” and in April came out against a Georgia voter-integrity law. Also in April, United Airlines announced that it would be choosing pilots based on a racial and sexual quota. (What could possibly go wrong? Tweet below.)
Now, I won’t say that, in principle, a business should never make a “political” statement. We all have an obligation to stand up for Truth, after all. So, for example, I applauded Chick-fil-A when it stood against the sexual devolutionary agenda. (It has since chickened-out.)
Yet it’s not just that the woke corporations stand against Truth (which the relativists running them don’t even believe in), but also that as a rule they’re not even committed to the causes they’re buttressing. The proof is that, again as a rule, they’re willing to kowtow to despotic China, whose rulers represent everything these corporations claim to despise.
But could this wokeness be a matter of profit any more than of principle? Unless this is an issue of “There’s no such thing as bad press,” it’s hard to imagine. So what’s the explanation?
As I’ve said before, I suspect the new generation that entered the business world the last 10 or 15 years is so indoctrinated with leftism that its members are blind to how unpopular the ideology is on Main Street. Moreover, wealthy corporate types likely live in a bubble in which they socialize with other effete, woke rich people; this makes it especially easy for them to mistake leftist views as a relatively uncontroversial norm.
What’s for sure is that once you “go Rapinoe,” there’s no graceful way out. To never wade into politics is okay, but upon hiring an ideologue or staking out a position a dilemma presents itself. For perpetuating the campaign will continue alienating those in opposition; ending it will alienate those in support. You’ve left Eden, and there’s no going back.
Subway should have remembered that it’s supposed to specialize in the hero, not the zero.
Hat tip: writer Jack Kemp
