Subway Restaurants: The Latest Victim of Brand Personality Risk

The marketing world is littered with celebrity endorsements that have ended in train wrecks. To name a few: OJ Simpson, Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong and Oscar Pistorius. Yet companies continue to dole out lucrative contracts to sports heroes, actors, politicians and other personalities du jour…in hopes of leveraging their popularity or notoriety.

Marketers are willing to roll the dice with their company’s brand reputation because celebrity endorsements require no creativity and very little effort. Nike’s ad agency simply shoots some footage of Tiger bouncing a golf ball 25 times off the face of a pitching wedge, and voila…there’s a 30-second commercial.

Companies hedge this brand risk by assuming that the public will assign them some sympathy for having been duped by any murdering, philandering or drug abusing ways of their fallen celebrity. Marketers also believe a celebrity’s fall from grace will provide their company with an opportunity to publicly cancel the contract, express sorrow or indignation, and gain additional time for their brand in the public spotlight.

With the child porn and sex indictment of long-time Subway spokesperson Jared Fogle – the overweight nobody whose claim to fame is based solely on losing pounds by eating at Subway restaurants – the risks of having any human represent your brand are once again in the spotlight.

In terms of long-term brand management, association with any individual who’s fallen from grace is a losing proposition. For starters, hiring the offender demonstrates poor judgment. Secondly, the offense takes the focus off the product / service for a very long time.

So ignore the assurances from your ad agency, even if the celebrity they’re proposing is Mother Teresa. But if you’re determined to use a celebrity, it may be safer bet to hire an animal, rather than a human. Industry sources claim that RinTinTin never bit anyone, and Morris the Cat never pooped outside of his litter box.

Better yet…create your own celebrity. The Geico Gecko, Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger, and StarKist’s Charlie the Tuna all have clean rap sheets.

So far.