• by Aaron Baar , October 29, 2009

For sandwich fans still unsure about what they want to be for Halloween, Quiznos is offering some help, via online tips about how to create costumes of some of its well-known advertising characters.

"Halloween has become such a fun, creative holiday and has a lot of really intense fans," Quiznos CMO Trey Hall tells Marketing Daily via e-mail. "The 'what are you going to be?' discussion has carried over from childhood. Halloween also incites a lot of conversation, online and otherwise."

A dedicated site, www.quiznos.com/halloween, proclaims itself to be the "best place to find last-minute costume ideas." Buttons on the site offer suggestions to create nine costumes such as The Quiznos Toaster, a Toasty Torpedo sandwich or a hillbilly character from one of the company's recent ads.

Each button takes users to a separate page, where five steps -- written in a very tongue-in-cheek style -- guide users to create their own costume. Suggestions to create a rollercoaster car (from one of the company's ads), for instance, include tips such as spray painting a cardboard box and fastening it around your waist; attaching kitchen appliances (which supposedly inspired roller coasters) to the car, and keeping your arms raised as if riding the coaster hills.

Each section includes the advertisement that inspired the costume in a simple click-to-view format. The company is promoting the site via its e-mail database, as well as through Twitter and Facebook.

"We're all about fandom here at Quiznos, and if you've raised your hand to indicate you're a fan, we want to keep you entertained," Hall says. "This is another opportunity for Quiznos fans to interact with the brand. It is always our objective to drive traffic to the restaurants, but a little extra fun interaction like this also spices up that consumer relationship."