Hey jlick (or anyone else), what’s the company policy on Subway owners expressing their personal worldviews through the stores?
For instance, could you put up a political poster to depose A-Bien?
How about having a stack of pamphlets promoting, say, abortion?
How about info for or against capital punishment?
What about putting up a big gay rainbow flag?
Separately, the Subway I was eating at today offered this paper. While I realize they are probably doing the customer a favor by having newspapers available, and are probably not obliged to do so, this is a MONTH AND A HALF OLD!
I mean, good grief, man.
It was the only paper in there I could see, English or Chinese.
Subway is rather strict about any unapproved decorations, regardless of whether political or not. I’m also a bit surprised about the amount of signage on top of the counter as Subway has been pushing us to simplify the amount of materials that might distract the customer.
Subway restaurants are not required to offer reading materials, but if they do they have to be current. We used to get free copies of Taipei Times because of the advertising contract with them, but the last contract ran out at the end of January, which appears to be when their copy was printed.
Let’s just say I was curious about how much of a personal/political worldview a franchise is suppose to project. Now I know.
I think they should be clean/sterile environments free of anything that might offend anyone. When I go grab my food I don’t want to see A-Bien posters, abortion pamphlets or gay rainbow flags or even straight-power flags. It’s distracting. One of the comforts of walking into a Subway (or any other franchise) is knowing that it conforms to certain tight franchise standards and that what I get at one, I’m going to get at another. As a business owner, why would you want to risk offending people and lose customers?
If I wanted to see individuality I’d go to [insert local mom-and-pop here].
That’s an interesting question. I wonder if any Subways or other restaurant chains in the US have any of those “Support the troops” paraphernalia allowed. Or a picture of Martin Luther King, for example.
How many people get offended by a rainbow flag anyway? I’m not sure I’d miss those that are.
A lot of people.
Take Bongos for example.
It’s very close to two huge mega churches that run services all day and it’s generally packed on Sundays.
There are always very large groups of church goers in Bongos.
If Bongos stuck up a gay rainbow flag, they WOULD lose business.
Would they miss it?
Damn straight they would.
Are Taiwanese Christians as adamant on the subject as US Christians? I dunno, Andrew seems like a pretty level-headed fellow to me; I don’t see him caving in to bigots that easily. Next time I’m there, I’ll ask him.
(note to mods, this might be a bit off-topic so feel free to split it)
The large groups are not just Taiwanese, but many foreign Christians.
And since there is no flag, it’s not an issue, so he’s not “caving in to bigots”.
It was just an example of how it could affect a business.
If I owned a commercial enterprise where my employees were directing connected to point of purchase, then I would highlight the emblems of my employees. With a franchise though, surely they have written directives about such a localization of the venue?
The large groups are not just Taiwanese, but many foreign Christians.
And since there is no flag, it’s not an issue, so he’s not “caving in to bigots”.
It was just an example of how it could affect a business.[/quote]
Doesn’t Grandma Nitti’s have a rainbow flag? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them around in restaurants here, though I’m not sure as it’s not that big a deal for me.
[quote=“Josefus”]The Rainbow flag at the Subway is gone now.
Not sure why, but I didn’t have anything to do with it.[/quote]
I’m pretty sure you had something to do with it.
[quote]jlick> Is Subway planning on renewing their newspaper contract?
Most of them don’t have any reading materials beyond women’s fashion magazines.[/quote]
It doesn’t look like it. I’m not terribly disappointed as the cost of that ad was pretty high. My Qingcheng restaurant has newspapers in English and Chinese every day which we subscribe to ourselves. That reminds me that we need to start subscriptions for Xingtian Temple restaurant too. Both stores also have a variety of English and Chinese magazines. The reason for all the women’s magazines, is that we have a current advertising contract with some of them and we get free copies of them for the stores. Providing magazines to read is a bit tricky too because people often take the ‘good ones’.