It’s odd…we have rather limited choices for dining out here in Morris, but over the last few months or year we’ve been avoiding our local Subway. Nothing against the place, good service, familiar food, etc., but there’s just been something…off.
Maybe it’s Jared Fogle’s fault.
The story was reignited two days ago when the New York Post revealed the contents of secretly recorded audio tapes. In them, Fogle’s perversions are laid bare.
I would fly us clear across the world if we need to. To Thailand or wherever we want to go. If we’re gonna try to get some young kids with us it would be a lot easier,said 38-year-old Fogle, married father of two, in the tapes.I had a little boy. It was amazing. It just felt so good. I mean, it felt — it felt so good.
Ooh, ick. How does one become such an awful person?
You probably don’t want to listen to this recording.
It’s the smell coming from Subway premises which has stopped me from ever going in there.
There’s a much worse smell now.
Well, to be fair, as far as we know no-one at the company had the least inkling of this, and they dumped him instantly as soon as it was even an allegation. You may have other reasons for not wanting to eat there, but I don’t see how you can blame them for Fogle.
That said, any time you tie your brand to an individual, you’re taking a risk.
Yeah, the Subways have a distinctive smell in Canada too. I sometimes wonder how the staff of my local Macs convenience store, which has a Subway in it, put up with it.
It would be interesting to know what kind of effect the Fogle crimes have had on Subway in Canada. Fogle didn’t appear in Canadian Subway ads. Here the “spokesperson” in recent years was a non-talking animated monkey. But given how many American TV channels the typical Canadian watches it was impossible to miss Fogle during those times when he was used in US ads.
@2, cervantes
I’d heard that there were complaints from a franchise owner about him years ago when he tried to get her to have a threesome with her underage cousin. I can’t recall the exact circumstances beyond that, but I seem to remember a few other tidbits about how Fogel was not exactly subtle about his proclivities.
That said, any time you tie your brand to an individual, you’re taking a risk
Yup. That’s why the best brand personal tie-ins are fictional people. Which makes me wonder why on earth anyone falls for personality branding. Why do I care what shoes some basketball player wears, whether that basketball player is real, fictional, or a fictionalized mix? Marketing and branding. Ugh.
Oh, Christ. There’s me feeling sick for the rest of the day. How many lives has this man been allowed to ruin, while so-called law enforcement sat on their fucking hands?
Jesus. Yeah, gonna be sick now. Fuck.
@5 Marcus
Basking in reflected glory/success. Jered lost a crapton of weight on a Subway diet and you could too! Athlete endorsements are similar, with the added aspect of I like this person, therefor I like what they like.
Every time I have gone to Subway I’ve gotten sick. I’ve avoided the place for years, well before the scandal.
Subway has been losing its “cred” long before Jared’s background came to light. Frequenting Gawker, I often get directed to their subBlog Kitchenette, where in the weekly article of bad behavior (whether restaurant or customer initiated), a Subway event is often included in the list of examples.
Seems Subway only gets bad publicity these days. Not defending them, just pointing it out.
You know, if someone gave me a million dollars a year to endorse their sandwich, *I* wouldn’t molest any children.
multitool #10
You are an idiot.
Go away.
multitool @ 10:
This really shouldn’t have to be said. There are people who have, and will be reading this thread, who were raped or sexually assaulted when they were children, and don’t regard this subject as one which is suitable for light-heartedness or humour. If by chance you were being serious with that comment, please spare us further discourse.
Really, I have no problem with my local Subway — it seems like a respectable fast food place. I also don’t blame them for Fogle’s nastiness in any way.
But I wonder if I’ve been making an unconscious association since the news about Fogle broke. If advertisers are serious about the potency of their advertising (and I do not pretend to be immune to it), then it’s entirely reasonable that a disgusting debacle like this would also taint their brand.
I gather that’s Rochelle Herman-Walrond in the video with Dr. Phil.
Her question is spot on: Why did the FBI take so long to nail this guy? Are they Catholic bishops? Perhaps those agents should be charged with enabling him.
Over the last two weeks I had two foot long subs from Subway, and they were as tasty as ever. Sure, it does remind me about Jared, but the people working at this branch have as much to do with him as most of us, nothing. So I’ll keep enjoying their subs…
As a vegetarian family, there aren’t very many fast food chains where we can reliably get fresh veggies and protein (their veggie patties are pretty good).
As for the smell, every place that sells meat smells pretty bad to us.
I don’t like Subway very much, but if you travel, you will find that Subways have regional differences in taste. The lunchmeat in some areas tastes different than in others, the veggies vary in quality, some areas only carry “lite” condiments and will automatically substitute if you ask for the plain version where some will use the plain versions by default and you need to ask if you want the “lite” kind… and, of course, the bread varies noticeably from restaurant to restaurant for some reason. Subway isn’t like most of the Deep Fried Potatoes And Grilled Meat On A Bun places, so if you like or dislike the chain based on your experiences at a local location you might be judging the chain as a whole unfairly.
I think the parent franchising company just isn’t very good at its job, all told. They are succeeding because there aren’t a lot of cheap, fast places which are relatively healthy, so in their own segment of the market they have very little competition. (All the big chain competitors I can think of are either notably more expensive, have food which is definitely worse than Subway’s, have absolutely horrible ambiance, or some combination of the three.) They seem to license more franchises than is probably good for the franchises themselves, too. (The town I used to live in had more than 1 per square mile for a while, although at least one of those locations has closed since I left — the only chain denser was Starbucks, which had 4 locations along a mile and a half of a single road for a few years.)
@The Vicar (#17)
I’ve been all over the US and every single Subway I’ve encountered emits a sickening odor. I haven’t noticed anything coming from the one at the station in my town here in Japan, but I haven’t tried getting very close to that one, so maybe it smells too. Other sub chains don’t have the smell, so I don’t know what it is.
The sandwiches themselves are generally tolerable if someone brings me one somewhere far from a restaurant. They’re low down on my list of fast food preferences, though.
I like Subways, especially the poultry sandwiches. And Jared Fogle was never a big part of the ad campaigns on this side of the pond, from what I know. I won’t hold his actions against the fast food restaurants, especially since they distanced themselves quite ardently. They didn’t try to shelter him or downplay the scandals or anything, did they?
Caine @12
I feel bad that my post hurt people’s feelings and wouldn’t have written it if I had known that’s what it would do.
I was intended as a jab at Jared himself and not his victims or their situation. This guy basically won the lottery, and what did he do with it? Cure cancer? Rescue animals? Sit home and play video games? No this tool did the worst thing he could possibly do and made the world a significantly worse place for quite a few children.
I’m not a particularly fine human being but I could literally out-moral this guy if I’d spent it all on Jack Daniels and pot. The scale of ugliness is baffling even in comparison to mediocrity.
@1, 3, 18
http://www.mspaintadventures.com/sweetbroandhellajeff/comoc.php?cid=035.jpg