Tiger Woods lay down his clubs today. From TigerWoods.com:
I would like to ask everyone, including my fans, the good people at my foundation, business partners, the PGA Tour, and my fellow competitors, for their understanding. What’s most important now is that my family has the time, privacy, and safe haven we will need for personal healing.
After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person.
Again, I ask for privacy for my family and I am especially grateful for all those who have offered compassion and concern during this difficult period.
As much as I’d love to talk gossip, there’s just so much about Tiger I don’t care about. I don’t actually like golf. I detest the sport. It’s designed more to enrage than challenge whenever I play. But there are a few points in here worth noting for posterity.
First, the PGA is crying in their big fancy beers. Sure, it generally sucks that Tiger was playing around. But this guy has made a lot of people rich. When he shows up in his fancy black golf sneakers and vertigo-enducing striped shirt on Sunday afternoons, Nike, PGA, Accenture, and his other sponsors just see dollar signs. That he’s taking this break is likely frustrating and humiliating to those who pay the bills. Let’s be clear: this is the era of Tiger. No one watches golf without him.
Speaking of Accenture, they’ve since pulled the plug on their relationship with Woods. He’s somewhat less useful as a non-golfer.
Second, Tiger Woods and his management have proved time and again to be savvy media managers. Yes, it was likely a misstep to avoid talking about this situation in a non-trivial fashion. His silence so far has been deafening in comparison to the statements of his associated lady friends. When the women come out of the woodwork first, you’ve waited too long to speak up.
But, as if we need a reminder of dethroned pro-atheletes on the comeback trail, Michael Vick is playing football again. And he was involved with dogs.
Woods will be back, sooner rather than later. Because, if there’s a moral in this for handling scandal in the media it’s this: the public has a notoriously short memory for illicit affairs. We want our winners, and will take them battered and bloodied if we have to. Tiger Woods has been a role model and teacher for years, but the comeback from self-destruction may be his biggest triumph yet.
When I was employed by big-corporate PR, I used Google News Alerts religiously. Still do. It’s a fantastic service, constantly filtering the Google index for current news relevant to my search query and delivering it to my inbox every day. At Apollo, I was interested in news about our company, and news about our competitors, partners, and vendors. Every day I’d get slogs of data to pile through, press releases to scan, and punditry to parse.
And after the list of headlines came the list of mentions in the blogosphere; post after post of opinionated bloggers and students, some slamming the organization for one reason or another, largely for things we could do little to rectify (I lost my financial aid money, I can’t drive, the school hates me, my lemonade monkey peed in my hair, etc.). But most of the blog commentary came from conscientious, diligent writers, passionate about their cause, and eager to share that passion with the world.
Had a meeting at a new agency today — 2Plural/evive. I don’t know what their name is, actually. The letterhead says evive, and looks cool as a palindrome, but the website is 2plural, as is the moniker on their cards. A bit of identity crisis there, about which I’m sure there is a good story.
On the flip side, Joe Klegseth (pres), Courtney LeBoeuf (account manager), and Stasia Brownell (project manager), appear to be quality people in a budding quality agency. If I was looking for agency marketing and branding assistance, this is a company looking to build and extend an already impressive reputation; I’d certainly give them a holler on the short list.
Check ‘em out. And thanks for the coffee and snacks!
Massive Friggin’ Annoyance Factor: All the niceties aside, why does every single marketing and branding agency have to lead with a completely bombastic Flash website? It’s heavy, ostentatious, pretentious, and it completely gets in the way of the message you’re trying to tell. 2Plural/evive is certainly not alone in this, they just come as the latest example of agentius adobus flashititus, an overwhelming need to prove to potential clients that you can deliver content in a medium that completely hides the fact that you have nothing of substance to say.
That, and if you try to visit the site in your iPhone, you’re plum out of luck.
