Tiger Woods Infidelity lessons for Marketers
Filed Under (public relations) by Gogo on 16-12-2009
Tiger Woods has been referred to as the most highly recognized athlete in the world. He has earned over $1 BILLION dollars in the course of his career but as of today, is in the midst of one of the most embarrassing situations a public figure can ever find themselves in.
As I thought about Tiger Woods, his wife, and the trauma to his family of his actions and the public nature of the revelations, it occurred to me that there are some lessons for small business in Tiger’s situation and how it has played out so far.
I’ve heard in the past, that there are 2 kinds of people we can learn from
Examples (role models) and lessons (“Don’t do that” case studies)
For years, Tiger has been comfortably entrenched in the “role model” category in the public mind. Today, he will have to serve as our lesson of the day.
On that note, here are 3 things you can learn from the Tiger Wood episode:
1. In the Age of Accelerated Information Transfer, there is no place to hide.
This applies whether you’re Tiger Woods, Inc or any other corporation (and yes, Tiger IS a corporation in addition to being a golfer). In today’s world, it’s best to live and do business congruently. Congruence means there should no misalignment between public message and your business strategy. The chances of cutting corners and being able to get away with it are slimmer than ever. Unlike Nike’s famous credo, I say, “Just Don’t Do It!”.
2. When you mess up, ‘fess up…quickly.
Part of the problem Tiger faced was the vacuum left by his absence and by the reluctance of his media management team to deal with the arising facts of the case. Whether you occupy a tiny sliver of the blogosphere, or you’re a Tiger-scale media colossus, the best damage control is to abandon any thought of concealment, confess, rectify the situation to the best of your ability and then get your new found piety in front of the public early and often.
3. Be excellent afterwards.
This final step means that you must continue to be good at whatever brought you into the limelight in the first place. If you were a good president before a misguided tryst with an intern, become an even better president. If you were an all-star basketball player before controversial allegations of extramarital dalliances, then become an all-world basketball player.
Lessons from Bill Clinton, Kobe Bryant and many others tell us that if you ‘fess up to your mess, make the media rounds and become even more “you” than ever before, the American public will largely forgive if not forget. These same principles apply to business scenarios.
I’d like to hear your comments on these Tiger Woods Infidelity lessons for marketers…
If you’re not a sports fan, you may not know Michael Vick. Unbelievably talented, he was supposed to lead the Atlanta Falcons football team to the promised land.
