In Defense of Public Relations

The Tiger Woods post-Thanksgiving saga and potential scandal depending on when the world’s most famous athlete decides to speak up continues to boggle the mind. New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey’s writes ”we are now witnessing his hooking and slicing his image straight into the rough, into the trees, into the drink.” I agree.

I can’t say how much damage his silence and all the speculation thereafter will affect his selling power, but it personally shows me as a fan of Tiger Woods since his junior golf days, another side to his personality. It looks to me as arrogance. Not putting out a statement that would appease the minds of millions of his fans is dumbfounding or simply, dumb.  The statement on Tiger Woods’ web site just begs for more speculation and whomever advised him to put it out should meet the same fate as Tiger’s former caddy “Fluff.”

Tiger calls the malicious rumors “irresponsible.” What is irresponsible is the fact that there is no explanation from him and it’s been more than 48 hours since the bewildering car accident. His silence is now bigger news than the actual event that caused him to be in the news. The speculations are wide-ranging from a marriage spat to rushing to a Black Friday sale though I personally think it was to test the airbags of his Escalade. (GM/Cadillac–It failed miserably since the airbags apparently didn’t deploy. Judging by the neighbor’s 911 call, it should have deployed.) 

As a PR professional, I always knew his perfect image was made up, but call me naive, I bought into it. For many years since the notorious GQ interview he did many years ago, Tiger hasn’t had a hiccup that would cost him a cent from his billion dollar image. He made all the right moves from media interviews to the charitable causes that he aligns himself with to his personal involvement with the Tiger Woods Foundation.  He managed his public image exactly the same way he managed his golf game — methodical. Too bad the PR machine that built him up to epic proportions stalled this weekend.

There was one thing absolutely accurate in Tiger’s statement. He’s “only human” and “not perfect.”  I’m still shocked by this admission.

I was about to let this blog die a slow death. Thanks to Coke, I’ve been rejuvenated to add one more post, No, I’m not O.D.-ing on caffeine. Seriously, I’ve been slammed the past few weeks and sharing my thoughts in 140 characters is just so much easier.  So how did Coke motivate me to write something longer than 140 characters? Simple. They launched a social media campaign.

What irks me about Coke’s social media campaign involving three hand-picked adventurers visiting 206 countries in 365 days is the clear lack of strategy and creativity that Coke is known for. It seems like they were trying so hard to come up with a cool idea that they ended up with a mishmash of Burger King’s Whopper Virgins campaign and the Amazing Race.

In my humble opinion, social media is a channel to build new relationships and cultivate existing relationships. When I first got wind of this campaign, I immediately asked myself, “why should I care?” I have no existing relationship with the three travelers  If I will be following the adventures of the three Coke amigos, I’d like to know  more about them. How they were chosen? Did they beat out millions for the job? What have they accomplished? It just seems so random. They’re almost an afterthought to the entire campaign.

Another thing that bothers me is the name of the campaign itself. “Happiness Goes Around” is just, in a word, dumb. It’s as though they heard the song by Donovan that goes, “happiness runs in a circular motion..,” used in two TV commercials that I know off (Delta Airlines and Cheerios), and then decided let’s go with that. In the case of Delta and Cheerios, the jingle worked well.

As for me and many others, HAPPINESS is simply a state of mind and searching for it in 206 countries might yield some memorable times, but true “happiness” is a choice. Pardon me for being preachy or sounding like Tony Robbins, but then again, Coke might do better in connecting to its customers (that includes me) if they sent us to one of Tony Robbins‘ motivational seminars. I’ll even capture it on video and upload on their site. This would’ve saved Coke tons of money. Whatever Coke saves dough, it should donate to the American Diabetes Association. Now, there’s a campaign that will connect with me on a personal level.

Feel free to share your un-happiness here.