I don’t know if you recall it—a lot of water has gone over the dam since late 2006—but throw your mind back and remember those TV commercials for Quiznos Subs that showed in various ways how superior they were to those of rival sandwich maker Subway. Some of them were professionally produced, man-on-the-street comparison ads from Quiznos itself, showing apparently average folks dissing wimpy subs from Subway for the sponsor’s meatier wares, and specifically its just-launched cheesesteak subs.

Nothing new there, really. But Quiznos upped the ante by tapping into the then-novel user-generated content wave. Specifically, they asked fans to create their own Q. vs. S. spots and upload them to a Web site, www.MeatNoMeat.com. The public were invited to “grab a camera and show us why you think Quiznos is better.” The grand prize: to see your ad air on VH1 and on a jumbo screen in Times Square on New Year’s Eve 2006, along with a year’s supply of Quiznos.

Well, the public did just that. And Subway’s parent company, already steamed (toasted?) by the comparison ads, promptly sued its rival, saying that the ads produced by the contest were false and deceptive advertising.

Quiznos’ parent’s response: We didn’t make those spots, contestants did. And under a section of the Communications Decency Act that’s primarily intended to prevent Internet service providers from being held liable for the third-party content they deliver, that meant that QIP or its video platform partner in the contest could not be blamed if the claims in those user-generated ads were found to be misleading or untrue.

The contest rules also explicitly prohibited “disparaging statements” about either brand or their products—something that didn’t prevent one of the entries from concluding with a guy throwing a sandwich across a parking lot and yelling, “Subway sucks!”



It’s a legal issue that may not have as much point now as it did back in the day when UGC was novel and seemed poised to revolutionize broadcast marketing. Brands like Doritos, Dove, Toyota and Heinz have all used user-generated content to promote their products, some of them through contests that offered to air the ads on broadcast TV or cable. And most of those contests didn’t have the explicit competitive element that Quiznos incorporated, both in its instructions and in several sample videos that iFilm put up on the MeatNoMeat.com site.

Still, the question regarding UGC will have to be answered UGC eventually: Is a brand ultimately as responsible for the claims that users make in its name as they are for the ads they create themselves? And many observers thought the Sub Wars case was going to provide some legal guidance.

Well, it hasn’t. Quiznos asked a U.S. District Court for a summary dismissal of the charges—basically a ruling that the Subway suit had no basis– and in late February the court said it couldn’t do that, and that the case would have to go to a jury trial.

The memo outlining the motion denail said that by inviting contestants to show why Quiznos was better, by posting sample videos that carried that message (albeit humorously) and by the very domain name of the Web site, Quiznos could be perceived as “shaping” or soliciting the content that it wanted users to produce, and that a jury might reasonably decide that the company wasn’t entitled to safe harbor under the CDA.

That’s all it took. Quiznos settled the case on Feb. 23, and the UGC issue remains to be resolved by some future lawsuit.

Irony fans will appreciate that when Subway, as part of its suit, forced Quiznos to close down the MeatNoMeat.com site and remove the UGC ads from its main Web site in November 2007, the clips moved over to YouTube. They’re still there , still eliciting viewer comments, and have probably been seen by more people on that social video site than they would have reached on the MeatNoMeat microsite.

I don’t know if you recall it—a lot of water has gone over the dam since late 2006—but throw your mind back and remember those TV commercials for Quiznos Subs that showed in various ways how superior they were to those of rival sandwich maker Subway. Some of them were professionally produced, man-on-the-street comparison ads from Quiznos itself, showing apparently average folks dissing wimpy subs from Subway for the sponsor’s meatier wares, and specifically its just-launched cheesesteak subs.

Nothing new there, really. But Quiznos upped the ante by tapping into the then-novel user-generated content wave. Specifically, they asked fans to create their own Q. vs. S. spots and upload them to a Web site, www.MeatNoMeat.com. The public were invited to “grab a camera and show us why you think Quiznos is better.” The grand prize: to see your ad air on VH1 and on a jumbo screen in Times Square on New Year’s Eve 2006, along with a year’s supply of Quiznos.

Well, the public did just that. And Subway’s parent company, already steamed (toasted?) by the comparison ads, promptly sued its rival, saying that the ads produced by the contest were false and deceptive advertising.

Quiznos’ parent’s response: We didn’t make those spots, contestants did. And under a section of the Communications Decency Act that’s primarily intended to prevent Internet service providers from being held liable for the third-party content they deliver, that meant that QIP or its video platform partner in the contest could not be blamed if the claims in those user-generated ads were found to be misleading or untrue.

The contest rules also explicitly prohibited “disparaging statements” about either brand or their products—something that didn’t prevent one of the entries from concluding with a guy throwing a sandwich across a parking lot and yelling, “Subway sucks!”



It’s a legal issue that may not have as much point now as it did back in the day when UGC was novel and seemed poised to revolutionize broadcast marketing. Brands like Doritos, Dove, Toyota and Heinz have all used user-generated content to promote their products, some of them through contests that offered to air the ads on broadcast TV or cable. And most of those contests didn’t have the explicit competitive element that Quiznos incorporated, both in its instructions and in several sample videos that iFilm put up on the MeatNoMeat.com site.

Still, the question regarding UGC will have to be answered UGC eventually: Is a brand ultimately as responsible for the claims that users make in its name as they are for the ads they create themselves? And many observers thought the Sub Wars case was going to provide some legal guidance.

Well, it hasn’t. Quiznos asked a U.S. District Court for a summary dismissal of the charges—basically a ruling that the Subway suit had no basis– and in late February the court said it couldn’t do that, and that the case would have to go to a jury trial.

The memo outlining the motion denail said that by inviting contestants to show why Quiznos was better, by posting sample videos that carried that message (albeit humorously) and by the very domain name of the Web site, Quiznos could be perceived as “shaping” or soliciting the content that it wanted users to produce, and that a jury might reasonably decide that the company wasn’t entitled to safe harbor under the CDA.

That’s all it took. Quiznos settled the case on Feb. 23, and the UGC issue remains to be resolved by some future lawsuit.

Irony fans will appreciate that when Subway, as part of its suit, forced Quiznos to close down the MeatNoMeat.com site and remove the UGC ads from its main Web site in November 2007, the clips moved over to YouTube. They’re still there , still eliciting viewer comments, and have probably been seen by more people on that social video site than they would have reached on the MeatNoMeat microsite.