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Jingle HellThe diabolical geniuses behind Subway's "five-dollar foot-long" song.

By Seth Stevenson
Posted Monday, April 21, 2008, at 7:21 AM ET

The Spot: Various people and creatures (a police officer, a flight attendant, a Godzilla-type monster) hold up five fingers and then, using their outstretched palms, indicate a distance of roughly one foot. Meanwhile, a song plays. The lyrics, repeated again and again: "Five. Five dollar. Five dollar foot-long."

For a limited time, Subway is offering a special deal: foot-long subs for $5. Foot-longs were once Subway's "stock in trade," according to Chief Marketing Officer Tony Pace, but in recent years the smaller 6-inch subs have overtaken them in popularity. (The 6-inchers are often sold as part of a package deal—including a drink and a snack—designed to compete with other fast food outlets' value meals.) "We wanted to get back to our heritage," says Pace, "as a place where you can get a foot-long sub."

How to convey this vital information to the public at large? To ad agency MMB, the advent of a $5 foot-long seemed in itself momentous and compelling enough that elaborate persuasive efforts could only cloud the issue. The key was to be as straightforward as possible. So the team devised a simple hand gesture to symbolize the $5 price and the ample length of the sandwich. This semaphore had a pleasing parsimony. But it still required some explanatory copy.

"We didn't want any blabbing," say Jerry Cronin and Jamie Mambro of MMB. "It was just, let's see how many times we can say 'five dollar foot-long.' Let's mention it as many times as possible without making someone hurt us. We wanted to make sure no one would miss the message." They quickly realized the best way to accomplish that goal (barring an embrace of the controversial "HeadOn: Apply directly to the forehead" method) was to embed the phrase in a jingle.

The resultant, maddeningly catchy ditty has spawned, among other responses, a YouTube horror-parody video titled "$5 Curse," in which a man goes slowly insane as he attempts to dislodge the tune from his skull. Comments posted by viewers of this video include: "I have this exact same problem. Thank you for making this video!"; "LOL. yes!! dude. this is me in my apartment"; and "I, too, am a victim of the $5 curse. My daughter and I were singing it together with the harmonies while doing the dishes after dinner tonight."

I think the song's genius (I myself have been known to hum along) lies in its blending of stubborn repetition with a haunting and imploring chord progression. It's a far cry from the pat, upbeat vibe of your standard jingle, and it's this unexpected quality that perks up our ears and sticks in our minds. I called the composer, Jimmy Harned (of the boutique music outfit Tonefarmer), to see whether he might confirm my notion that there's something ominous going on in his work.

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Seth Stevenson is a frequent contributor to Slate.
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