TJ Walker examines Subway's response to Jared Fogle's guilty plea for sexually abusing 14 children. Fogle was the face of the brand for 15 years. Walker says Subway's one-sentence statement was too little, and they should have donated his earnings to child-abuse charities and had the CEO take visible responsibility.
Questions this video answers
15 years.
14.
$100,000 to each child.
"We have no further relationship with Jared and we will make no further comment."
Chapters
Subway sandwich maker facing a crisis. For 15 years, Jared has been the spokesperson for Subway. He's the guy who lost more than 200 pounds eating nothing but Subway sandwiches. And you saw him everywhere, in TV commercials, in news stories about Subway. Well now he is pled guilty to being a child abuser, a child molester. 14 different children he sexually abused and has agreed to pay $100,000 in restitution to each child. Here's what Subway said earlier this week. We have no further relationship with Jared and we will make no further comment. How do we rate that as a form of crisis communications? I think it's pretty poor. Now no fair minded individual really thinks that Subway is somehow to blame or encouraging child molestation. That's not what this issue is about. But it is embarrassing, it is unseemly when your main spokesperson, your main face in front of at this point, tens of millions of dollars of TV commercials is a known and admitted child molester. It is a bit sad and it is frankly pathetic. It does show the need for all corporations to do a more serious vetting if they're going to have spokespersons. Now I have no idea what this individual was like 15 years ago. This may have been a recent turn of events. Let others judge that. But it does call into question the judgment of Subway to give such prominence to somebody with such a troubled dark side. Now, forgetting all that for a moment, how did Subway actually react? I give them very poor marks by just issuing a brief bland statement of no further relationship. No comment. Anytime you're saying no comment, no further comment, that's generally trouble in a crisis because what you're doing is saying things that remind people of mobsters and criminals who get caught and they say no comment. You know the old covering your face with a briefcase as you're caught, as you're being carried away, about to be handcuffed because you just murdered somebody or you just got caught and a major swindle to no comment. So I understand that there are times when you can't comment for legal reasons, for business reasons, strategic reasons. But I happen to believe it never, and I mean never makes sense to say no comment or to put out in a press statement no comment. If you don't want to give further comment, just don't give further comment. You don't have to give people the opportunity to quote you in news stories saying you're not going to comment because it just sends off the signal that you're hiding, you're guilty. You want this whole thing to go away and you're basically telling reporters, hey, I'm trying to manipulate you. I'm trying to tell you that even if you want to do a story, I'm not going to cooperate. How is that helpful? I do think they've missed a huge opportunity, rather than saying no comment, to have expressed some concern, some well being, for the children and families involved of those who were molested. I understand there may have been legal reasons not to, but Jared has already pled guilty. So you can't get accused of libeling somebody or slandering somebody if you are expressing condolences to somebody they've already publicly, publicly admitted they've harmed. So if the reason they didn't express that concern is out of legal reasons, I think that was misplaced. Somebody would have been far better off to say something like, we've severed all ties with Jared. We send our utmost good wishes and sympathies to all the families involved in and the salary that we would have given Jared next year we're donating to some sort of child abuse foundation that helps children who've been abused. That's how Subway could have come out ahead. The problem now is this is bad news and it's forcing a lot of people in the media to scrutinize everything about Subway. And it's the context for stories about how these are tough times for Subway. Their numbers are down, Starbucks is beating them, they're not as popular as they used to be. They're not as fresh and as wholesome as Chipotle. All these negative stories are coming out with this being the hook. That's why it's so crucial for Subway to get a better handle of this. I give them very poor marks. And also putting this out in a tweet and a brief statement, it just reeks of cowardice. I mean, this isn't a contractor that was hired for a month six months ago. This has been their main spokesperson, the main identity of their corporation for a decade and a half. I believe their CEO should have given a public statement, a public interview on this, shown some accountability. This just seems like they're really trying to sweep it under the rug. And anytime you do that, it makes people want to pull up the rug and look at what else is hiding.
