In its quest for a fresh new look, Subway is looking back nearly half a century.

The sandwich chain is ditching celebrity spokespeople and catchy discount jingles in favor of a vintage vibe in one of its first major ad campaigns since ex-pitchman Jared Fogle's child sex scandal prompted a public relations nightmare for the fast food giant this summer.

See also: Subway has other problems beyond accused pedophile Jared

The new ad, which aired for the first time this week, traces the chain's roots all the way back to 1965, when co-founders Fred DeLuca and Peter Buck founded the small deli that would later grow into a sandwich behemoth.

The chain originally made a name for itself as a healthier alternative to the burger joints that dominated the industry, serving up fresher-looking fare at fast food prices.

"The idea seemed crazy in a time when artificial foods and gimmicks were all the rage," the narrator says as a 1960s family digs into TV dinners.

That image proved immensely popular with fast food-weary Americans, and the chain quadrupled its sales revenue between 1998 and 2014 and expanded to more than 44,000 worldwide locations.

But more recently a host of fast casual competitors like Panera and Chipotle have been beating Subway at its own game. Subway’s food and visual appeal fell out of favor among American respondents last year, according to a recent survey from Technomic. Suddenly, the sandwich chain's "Eat Fresh" mantra was looking a little stale.

The public shaming of Subway's slimmed-down mascot further dragged down already sagging sales.

With all that in mind, Subway is laying stake to a new claim: It now wants to remind everyone that it did fresh first — perhaps hoping to instill a veteran cachet that younger rivals can't match.

"We were fresh before it was fresh to be fresh," the voiceover says.

The campaign is the first major effort from ad agency BBDO, which the chain enlisted after casting off Boston-based MMB in the wake of the Fogle scandal. The ad also serves as a tribute to DeLuca, who died this year of leukemia.