As Sub­way moves for­ward with Ten­nessee Titans quar­ter­back Mar­cus Mar­i­o­ta, its brand face is arguably still heal­ing from the black eye dealt by for­mer spokesman Jared Fogle. While most brand­ing experts agree Fogle won’t sin­gle-hand­ed­ly elim­i­nate the use of spokesper­sons en masse and brands will cer­tain­ly per­form more due dili­gence from this point on, there are plen­ty of oth­er mar­ket­ing lessons that can be derived from the Fogle deba­cle.

Here are 20 insights on the future of spokes­peo­ple and influ­encers.

1. A Paid Spokesperson Can Overshadow Brand Meaning

Per Jon Bai­ley, chief rela­tion­ships offi­cer at mar­ket­ing agency The i.d.e.a. Brand, when a brand pays a spokesper­son to rep­re­sent it, the act deval­ues oth­er com­po­nents of brand mean­ing and it becomes more about the per­son than the com­pa­ny.

“That’s the dan­ger with spokes­peo­ple – they become the embod­i­ment of the brand and when you’re charg­ing them with real­ly becom­ing the front face of your brand, that comes with con­se­quences,” Bai­ley said. “For Sub­way, that worked very well for many years, but when [spokes­peo­ple] don’t work, they real­ly don’t work. It’s not like hav­ing a brand ambas­sador that is sort of there because they love your brand and are gen­uine, authen­tic peo­ple. When you pay a spokesper­son to be the front of your brand, there are all kinds of con­se­quences.”

He points to recent exam­ples such as Lance Arm­strong and Tiger Woods, which caused headaches for the brands they rep­re­sent­ed for this very rea­son.

Indeed, Jorge Aguilar, exec­u­tive direc­tor of brand strat­e­gy at brand con­sult­ing firm Lan­dor Asso­ciates, agrees brands should ask them­selves if they need to rely on spokes­peo­ple to begin with and to per­haps instead do some soul search­ing and ques­tion what their brands real­ly stand for.

2. Brands Can’t Have Their Cake And Eat It, Too

Annie Weber, man­ag­ing direc­tor of pub­lic affairs and cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions at mar­ket research com­pa­ny GfK, said the Sub­way sit­u­a­tion under­scores that brands must not only find spokes­peo­ple who are real­ly good fits, they will also no longer be able to get away with claim­ing they have a mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ship with some­one who rep­re­sents their val­ues as long as the rela­tion­ship is work­ing and then lat­er claim it was so super­fi­cial it can be sev­ered with a sin­gle tweet.

“They can’t both say the rela­tion­ship is mean­ing­ful and not,” Weber said. “I don’t think con­sumers are going to be as open to that kind of an attitude…consumers are hun­gry for authen­tic­i­ty and that you’ve done your due dili­gence, so I think it is going to be part and par­cel that they will have to think close­ly about who they align them­selves with and ensure it’s a real­ly good fit down to the foun­da­tion and val­ues of the com­pa­ny.”

3. Bona Fide Celebrities Have Their Own Reputations That Aren’t Intrinsically Tied To A Given Brand’s

Accord­ing to Bai­ley, the rea­son this par­tic­u­lar case is so unique is because Sub­way made Fogle famous. How­ev­er, if the brand had used a celebri­ty famous in his or her own right with his or her own sphere of influ­ence, Sub­way could have dropped him or her with rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle dam­age to the brand.

“In this case, Fogle has become syn­ony­mous with Sub­way over 15 years, so it could only reflect back on the brand – it’s hard to extri­cate the two,” Bai­ley said.

Chad Reid, direc­tor of com­mu­ni­ca­tions at web-based WYSIWYG form builder Jot­Form, agrees Fogle exist­ed in the pub­lic eye only because of Sub­way, which is why the brand took a hard­er hit than Nike did with Woods or Macy’s with Don­ald Trump.

“Woods was already a pub­lic fig­ure whose rep­u­ta­tion wasn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly tied to Nike’s,” Reid said. “Jared’s per­son­al life was made pub­lic by way of Sub­way. It cre­at­ed a much hard­er fall for the com­pa­ny.”

Andy Fer­gu­son, free­lance writer and cre­ative direc­tor, con­curs that by shin­ing a spot­light on this anony­mous man, Sub­way cre­at­ed Jared the Sub­way Guy and gave him influ­encer sta­tus.

“Up until this point, you can’t do much bet­ter than cre­at­ing a spokesman/character who goes from total­ly unknown to glob­al influ­encer. The only equi­ty Jared has to the world at large is his asso­ci­a­tion with Sub­way,” Fer­gu­son said. “He’s not an ath­lete or musi­cian or actor who has been paid to say nice things about the brand. He’s a bona fide brand enthu­si­ast whose sto­ry inspired mil­lions.”

4. Human Beings Will Screw Up

Paige Arnof-Fenn, CEO of mar­ket­ing net­work Mavens & Moguls, notes there is risk in attach­ing a brand to a human being, who is inher­ent­ly flawed.

“Humans make mis­takes,” she said.

In fact, Bian­ca Lee, founder of White Rose Mar­ket­ing Solu­tions, goes as far as say­ing human spokes­peo­ple are a bad idea in this day and age.

“It was per­fect­ly fine back in the days of the Marl­boro man, but he did­n’t get caught sex­ting or lick­ing donuts or hump­ing the Nic­ki Minaj wax sculp­ture at Madame Tus­sauds or what­ev­er else because there was­n’t an always-on social media cul­ture,” Lee said. “In 2015, if you hire an ath­lete, artist or any oth­er celebri­ty and plan to have them as the face of your brand for a long peri­od of time, you are going to be dis­ap­point­ed because they are human. It is only a mat­ter of when and how bad­ly.”

5. There Are Infinite Ways To Get Caught

With omnipresent mobile devices, Kyle Reyes, cre­ative direc­tor and pres­i­dent of bou­tique agency The Silent Part­ner Mar­ket­ing, said every com­pa­ny is bound to have some kind of a faux pas in the dig­i­tal age.

And Ralph Leg­ni­ni, senior cre­ative strate­gist at dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing ser­vices and con­sult­ing agency Drag­on­Search, points to a not-so-dis­tant future full of drones in which it will be even eas­i­er to get gotcha footage of bad behav­ior, which is, and will remain, big news online and in social media.

6. Variety Is The Spice Of Life

For this part, Aguilar said the Jared deba­cle is real­ly some­thing that can only exist in this always-on dig­i­tal age, which under­scores why brands shouldn’t rely on a sin­gle spokesper­son. (And, to be fair, Sub­way has diver­si­fied its efforts with ath­letes like Mike Trout and Nas­tia Liukin, but Fogle remained a brand face for many years.)

Liam Brown, CEO of busi­ness coach­ing firm Side­step Coach­ing, goes as far as call­ing it “incred­i­bly stu­pid and risky” for a brand to tie itself to a sin­gle spokesper­son and said it’s unlike­ly we’ll see this again, using brands like Jen­ny Craig, Proac­tiv and Nike as exam­ples of those that cycle through spokesper­sons, nev­er hang­ing on to one for too long.

“That way when one of their influ­encers goes side­ways with the public…the over­all hit to the rep­u­ta­tion and cred­i­bil­i­ty of the brand is some­what safe­guard­ed,” he adds.

The down­side is that these brands have to mon­i­tor mul­ti­ple influ­encers’ behav­ior, but it’s a nec­es­sary evil, Brown adds.

7. Don’t Rely On Any One Spokesperson For Too Long

Lee said Sub­way should have got­ten rid of Fogle long ago and held a con­test to replace him, rins­ing and repeat­ing over the years.

“Had they done this, the Sub­way brand could stand for health in the same way Wheaties stands for cham­pi­ons,” she said. “The mis­take Sub­way made was depend­ing on a sin­gle human being to be the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for their brand in an era where rep­u­ta­tions can be ruined with one tap of a smartphone…and the vari­a­tion strat­e­gy engages many more peo­ple in a way that can dri­ve deep­er rel­e­vance for the brand.”

Dana DiT­o­ma­so, part­ner at dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing agency Kick Point, agrees Subway’s big mis­take was high­light­ing Fogle for so long.

“They could have come out with mul­ti­ple suc­cess sto­ries, had ads that did­n’t just focus on him — many options that would have tak­en away the spot­light and thus the fall­out would have been a bit eas­i­er to take,” she adds.

8. Characters Are Safer

Instead of flawed human beings, how­ev­er famous and influ­en­tial they may be, mar­keters know pre­cise­ly what they are going to get with ani­mat­ed char­ac­ters like the Geico Gecko, Mr. Clean and Rice Krispies’ Snap, Crack­le and Pop, which they can actu­al­ly con­trol, Lee said.

“The ani­mat­ed char­ac­ters can last you for­ev­er with­out scan­dal,” she adds.

Reid agrees fic­tion­al­ized spokes­peo­ple – even human char­ac­ters like Flo from Pro­gres­sive, May­hem from All­state and the Triva­go Guy – are also smart choic­es.

“At the end of the day, char­ac­ter spokes­peo­ple can be replaced with­out much hic­cup,” he said. “So in the event of anoth­er cri­sis, it wouldn’t cre­ate the same media fren­zy as a real per­son.”

9. Regular Joes And Janes May Be Easier

While influ­encers are cer­tain­ly pow­er­ful in their own right – and per­haps more authen­tic – and experts antic­i­pate influ­encer mar­ket­ing will con­tin­ue to grow and thrive, DiT­o­ma­so notes these com­pa­ny rep­re­sen­ta­tives may sim­ply be eas­i­er to work with than tra­di­tion­al celebri­ties and ques­tions whether this will spur brands to rely on them more fre­quent­ly as a result.

10. More Niches Are Coming

As tech­nol­o­gy advances, Fer­gu­son said he expects to see more nich­es, which will, in turn, mean more oppor­tu­ni­ties for influ­ence that are even more spe­cif­ic and var­ied.

“I think that there’s always going to be ways to reach broad audi­ences on com­mon themes like love, suc­cess, dreams, etc.,” he said. “But there’s going to be more need for brands to con­nect with a wider vari­ety of influ­encers if the brands want to have deep­er, more authen­tic con­nec­tions with the audi­ences they’re hop­ing to reach.”

Fer­gu­son also points to a Vari­ety sur­vey that found the top five influ­encers for teens are YouTube stars.

“As tech­nol­o­gy advances, influ­encers are going to emerge from unex­pect­ed places,” he said. “Brands will have to be more engaged in more spe­cif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion to cap­ture those audi­ences.”

11. Influencers Are Good Filters

For his part, Dave Wake­man, prin­ci­pal at Wake­man Con­sult­ing Group, points to infor­ma­tion over­load in the dig­i­tal era and said trust­ed resources like influ­encers help con­sumers fil­ter through.

Indeed, Nan­cy Harhut, chief cre­ative offi­cer at dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing firm Wilde Agency, agrees con­sumers are hard­wired to fol­low the lead of peo­ple like them or the peo­ple they like.

“Celebri­ties become author­i­ties of a sort when they endorse a prod­uct, even if there’s not an espe­cial­ly close rela­tion­ship between them and the prod­uct they endorse,” she said. “Sim­i­lar­ly, ‘some­one like me’ who uses a prod­uct with favor­able results will always be moti­vat­ing to that pro­duc­t’s tar­get mar­ket. We, as peo­ple, assume that per­son has done the research, or knows some­thing we don’t. It’s the kind of deci­sion-mak­ing short­cut we all rely on.”

12. Due Diligence Is More Than A One-Time Affair

While experts uni­ver­sal­ly agree com­pa­nies will increase due dili­gence at the onset of new rela­tion­ships, Bai­ley said he also expects smart brands will make a point to per­form due dili­gence more fre­quent­ly as well.

“It’s pos­si­ble Fogle was squeaky clean at the out­set, but Sub­way should have checked in peri­od­i­cal­ly,” Bai­ley said. “If a com­pa­ny does embark on that kind of rela­tion­ship, they’re going to be more care­ful. Con­tracts will have a short­er dura­tion so they can be reeval­u­at­ed and reis­sued.”

13. Character Counts

Your due dili­gence may explore the essence of who the per­son is.

“It’s not enough to have a great smile or an inspi­ra­tional sto­ry, a spokesper­son needs to have more than a good rep­u­ta­tion,” said Andy Beal, CEO of social media mon­i­tor­ing firm Track­ur. “They need to have a great char­ac­ter.”

14. Relatability Is Key

But regard­less of who a brand choos­es, con­sumers must see a bit of them­selves in that per­son in order for the rela­tion­ship to have brand val­ue.

“It’s my Har­vey Dent hypoth­e­sis,” Reyes said. “In the movie ‘The Dark Knight’, Bruce Wayne did what he need­ed to do to pro­tect Har­vey Dent when he turned into Two Face. He did it because Bruce Wayne/Batman believed that peo­ple need­ed a hero. They need­ed some­one to look to and to trust. It’s the same with spokes­peo­ple. It’s the same rea­son why Don­ald Trump is crush­ing it in the polls. Peo­ple want some­one they can relate to and some­one who they feel can speak their lan­guage.”

15. Money Talks

The prac­tice of using spokesper­sons and influ­encers will con­tin­ue, sim­ply put, because it works.

“Par­al­lel this,” Leg­ni­ni said. “Sports teams con­tin­u­al­ly sign play­ers who have ques­tion­able pasts – because they are renowned in their field and have influ­ence to sell tick­ets. The gam­ble often out­weighs the risk.”

16. Protocols Should Be In Place

Mel Car­son, CEO of con­sul­tan­cy Delight­ful Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, likens the Fogle after­math to the 2008–2009 time­frame “when you had a whole bunch of big social media whoop­sies,” which was fol­lowed by brands putting social media pro­to­cols in place.

“This would be a moment for brands to real­ly do the same thing and have a bit of a reset to make sure they are using the right influ­encers and spokes­peo­ple, but also that they have the right process­es in place and they have worked with their PR com­pa­nies and agen­cies to make sure they have a sol­id plan in case any­thing does go wrong,” he said.

Huma Gru­az, pres­i­dent and CEO of Alpay­tac Pub­lic Relations/Marketing Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, agrees brands that imple­ment strate­gic cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies in case of an implo­sion can pro­tect their brands and some­times even enhance bonds with cus­tomers.

“Case in point, when [Armstrong’s] lies were revealed, every­body felt cheat­ed — not only its spon­sors,” Gru­az said. “In a way, fans of Arm­strong who kept on believ­ing in him and sup­port­ing him com­mis­er­at­ed with the spon­sor brands and shared their dev­as­ta­tion.”

17. Face The Music

But, even if the worst hap­pens, DiT­o­ma­so notes the brands that own their mis­takes and val­ues can min­i­mize over­all dam­age.

18. Memories Are Short

“There have been scan­dals of all sorts that hap­pened before the Fogle inci­dent and there will be plen­ty after­wards,” Brown said. “The con­sumer has a very short mem­o­ry.”

19. Think Big Picture

Regard­less of who they work with, brands that employ a spokesper­son as part of an inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing mix are the ones who are real­ly on to some­thing, Bai­ley not­ed.

20. Don’t Be Scared

Smart brands won’t let the Sub­way exam­ple deter them from using a spokesper­son as part of a larg­er mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy – they will sim­ply be smarter about it, notes Cal­lum Beat­tie, part­ner at brand­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions agency Hon­est Agency.

What oth­er lessons do you think mar­keters can glean from this sit­u­a­tion?