Dive Brief:

• Late Tuesday Subway announced it is putting its creative accounts up for review.
• The news comes days after the chain's CMO announced his departure and weeks after it halted its relationship with longtime spokesman Jared Fogle.
• In a statement, Subway would not shed any more light on the reason for the sudden review, but did confirm that it will be a closed review of its creative advertising unit.

Dive Insight:

Subway is going through a bit of a rough PR patch, including the departure of its CMO Tony Pace, who will be leaving the sandwich chain to form his on marketing consultancy. Boston-based MMB currently handles Subway's creative work, however, a statement said, "based on confidentiality agreements," Subway is not disclosing which agencies are participating in the review.

The sandwich chain saw its first decline in years in U.S. sales with a 3% drop, so the agency review could be part of the company's steps toward reversing the sales slip. AdAge, citing Kanter Media, reports Subway spent about $533.2 million last year on U.S. measured media, up 3.5% from $515.2 million.