The news last week was that Quizno’s is going into bankruptcy and introducing new pastas.

Or are they introducing new pastas and going into bankruptcy?

Look, I only know what I read in Nation’s Restaurant News. But this article shares my opinion that one of the problems they will have to fix going forward is their advertising.

Let’s look at a recent Quizno’s ad. This is from last fall:

And then this from a couple years before that:

Now let’s quote from Chapter 7 of Selling Eating:

“A consistent brand voice becomes an asset…. Whether you agree with the legal ramifications of the Supreme Court declaring that corporations are people, there is in that legal declaration a central truth to how we interact with the things we buy. Corporations can have relationships with us, like people. Corporations can talk to us, like people. We tend to give brands “personalities” and human characteristics. Think about people who are inconsistent, whose voice, whose word choices, whose very essence seems different one time to the next. We call those people crazy-ass. We stay away, and deal with them only when necessary. Does that sound like a good brand relationship?” – Selling Eating, pages 51-52

See, Quizno’s has no idea who they are. They ran some daring ads in the early aughts, got scared when people made fun of them, survived as an alternative to Subway but suddenly became similar to lots of better-defined choices, then started babbling in many, many, many completely separate voices over the last four or five years—convincing everyone they had no idea what they were doing.

They have no idea who they are. So neither do we.

Too bad there’s no such thing as firms who can help them determine a market position then present themselves charmingly and consistently for awhile.