The year was 2004, and the popular sub sandwich chain of the time, Quiznos, launched a very unusual ad campaign. These ads starred what quickly became known as the Quiznos Sub mascots, the Spongmonkeys.
What on earth is a spongmonkey you might ask? Well, to keep the explanation simple, back in 2003 an artist and animator by the name of Joel Veitch created the furry, little creatures. He also created and launched a music video of the song, “We Love the Moon.” You can see the original video here.
According to the meme site b3ta.com, the term “spong” refers to “the practice of adding large staring eyes with small pupils to an image.” Ah ha, now it starts to make more sense.
An art director by the name of Ty Harper was on assignment to bring Quiznos a new, catchy ad campaign. He had seen the popularity of “We Love the Moon,” and worked with Veitch to adapt the song for the 2004 hit commercial. And then it just exploded in popularity. Shortly after the first commercial, another made it’s way to the limelight, vowing that stores would accept any type of coupon for a sandwich.
After this extreme franchise blowup, the company started to see hardship about a decade later. In 2007, the company had the most franchises, sitting at about 5,000 stores worldwide. Just a year later, the US is hit by the “Great Recession,” which impacted tons of businesses nationwide. Quiznos too was caught up in the mayhem, and a great amount of franchises were forced to close their doors.
In 2014, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Beyond that, throughout multiple attempts to reconstruct the company, Quiznos sits at about 148 locations around the US today.
All in all, it was a wild ride for what was once the number three sub sandwich company in the United States. In 2023, they launched a brand new commercial, starring the crazy-eyed critters, making one more attempt to revamp the brand.
Whether or not you loved these bizarre-looking spongmonkeys, they sure left a mark in television advertising history. And after watching these commercials again, it’ll be a while until I’m not singing the jingle randomly throughout the day once more. Oh yeah, and they got a pepper bar!