Subway Rhetorical Analysis Examples

If my roommate is popping a pimple, and pimple popping is pleasurable, then my roommate is currently experiencing pleasure. This may sound disgusting and illogical, but as long as the first two clauses hold true, the conclusion that she’s experiencing pleasure must be true according to formal logic. Formal logic uses syllogisms to draw conclusions based upon two premises—a major and a minor. However, in some cases, the minor premise is common knowledge. In this case, we might assume that everyone knows the feeling you get from popping a pimple on your face. If this is true, you can instead simply state that she is popping a pimple, and the audience can draw the conclusion that she’s experiencing pleasure from their own background knowledge. This is called an enthymeme, and it’s used frequently in advertising to convince buyers that a particular product is superior over its competitors. One example of such an enthymeme is Subway’s popular slogan: “Subway,

Eat Fresh.” Subway’s advertising strategy depicts the common idea that eating fresh food is highly valued in first-world societies.
Subway’s advertisement employs the rhetorical logic of enthymemes.

The major premise that it builds upon is that Subway allows its customers to eat fresh. This is the stated premise in the slogan. What isn’t directly stated is that eating fresh is good. However, despite this fact, this can be assumed as common knowledge. This creates a target audience for the advertisement: people who value their health and want to eat fresh food. Subway takes advantage of the popular value across the western world for eating “fresh.” This is consistent with the general placement of Subway’s stores. They tend to be in western first-world societies who place this great emphasis on eating healthy as much as possible. The major and minor premises in the slogan lead to the logical conclusion that Subway is good. Being told that Subway allows its customers to eat fresh and that eating fresh is good, one can draw the logical conclusion that eating at Subway is good and that people who want to eat fresh should buy from their

locations.
Subway’s message isn’t for everyone. The enthymeme fails to address other factors a consumer may consider when selecting where to eat. For example, it does not display any sort of cost advantage over other brands, nor does it specify anything about taste. These are important factors when it comes to selecting a place to eat. It doesn’t matter how fresh your food is; no one in their right mind is going to pay $50 for a sandwich. You may be thinking that Subway’s sandwiches aren’t that expensive, but that’s because you know from your own personal experience that this is true. A first-time buyer would not have this information, and would also not know what a Subway sandwich tastes like.
The enthymeme also fails to address competitors and does not seem to portray its sandwiches as superior over other sandwich companies. Theirs could be fresh too. This is not evident from the slogan. Nonetheless, it’s still quite an effective slogan for just two words (three if you include the name of the company). It effectively gets across its major argument that Subway has fresh food and that consumers should purchase it due to it being a desirable quality of food.
Logic plays an important role in advertisements, and not just for Subway. Campaigns everywhere rely on cultural values and use them to their advantage to get consumers to buy their products. It’s everywhere—in politics, religion, economics, and even sandwich shops. The most important thing is to recognize what the enthymeme is appealing to and figure out if what they’re preaching is actually something you personally value and if the product is actually worth your fiscal investment.