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Music, signage and atmosphere influence how long customers stay, how they feel, and how they perceive a brand.
In quick service environments, these elements help shape brand perception, influence ordering behaviour, and support a fast, seamless customer journey.
Subway has built one of the UK’s largest and most recognisable QSR estates, with a strong focus on convenience, customisation and operational efficiency. Our observations and suggestions could support and further enhance that experience across the estate.
Music was one of the more distinctive parts of the experience. The store was using “Subway Radio” - an AI-style branded radio station combining music with promotional announcements and messaging around products and offers.
The concept itself feels forward-thinking and aligned with Subway’s operational model, particularly across a large franchise network. However, the overall music experience felt inconsistent in tone and quality. The soundtrack leaned heavily towards royalty-free and generic pop tracks, which often faded into background filler rather than contributing to the atmosphere of the space.
The store used illuminated menu boards and promotional panels behind the counter, providing clear operational communication for menu items and offers.
Beyond this, there was limited use of dynamic digital signage or branded visual storytelling within the customer journey. This creates an opportunity to introduce more engaging content across the estate - from limited-time offers and meal deals to loyalty messaging, app promotion and seasonal campaigns.
Build on the Subway Radio concept with more intentional music curation that reflects the brand’s personality and customer base, while reducing repetition and improving overall soundtrack quality.
Combine music, voiceovers and promotions in a way that feels cohesive, contemporary and engaging throughout the customer journey.
Introduce more dynamic signage for promotions, loyalty campaigns and menu storytelling to create a more engaging and connected in-store experience.
Based on your brand, audience and environment, here’s an example of how your music could feel with Startle.
This playlist has been designed to feel upbeat, current and approachable - blending contemporary pop, indie and feel-good commercial tracks to create a fresh and energetic atmosphere that suits a modern QSR environment.
The intention is to:
Combine music, promotional messaging and automatically generated voiceovers - choose from over 100 professionally crafted playlists or a bespoke soundtrack.
We offer simple, scalable digital signage to promote menu items, upsell combinations and highlight campaigns - helping drive consistency and sales.
With Startle Studio, you’ll have full visibility and control of all your sites’ music and signage schedules from a central platform, ensuring consistency across your entire estate.
We’ve worked with fast-moving hospitality brands to create more engaging, brand-led environments that improve atmosphere and consistency across multi-site estates.
We partnered with atis to deliver a more scalable and centrally managed approach to music across their locations - helping create a soundtrack that reflected the brand’s fresh, contemporary positioning while remaining simple for teams to manage day to day.
This approach included:
We'd definitely recommend Startle to any hospitality brand, single site or multi-site. It really doesn't matter who you are or what your particular use case is. It's so easy to install, it allows for huge consistency across all of your stores, and it really just is the best option out there.
Growth Marketing Manager
Book your discovery call to explore how music and signage could enhance experience, consistency and engagement across your estate.
On this call we’ll:
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