I may be a couple of days late with this post, but I have a good excuse. One I’m not on deadline and two there were way too many events going on in the world the past two days for me to even care about what Tiger Woods has to say about his shenanigans the last four months.

It also took me more than a day to digest Tiger Woods’ first two media interviews with ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi and The Golf Channel’s Kelly Tilghman. Neither will be winning a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism in the future. Both reporters (if you want to call them that) showed a lot of restraint and avoided asking the tough questions. In fact, it is obvious Kelly is the queen of Tiger Woods’ media groupie. Still, you can’t solely place the blame on them though. With only five minutes allotted per interview, there’s no way any journalist could have been able to ask the hard questions, and if they did, Tiger would have needed more than five minutes to respond. Let’s put it this way. Tiger’s caddy, Steve Williams, could have stood in for him and we wouldn’t have known the difference.

So what was this exclusive 5-minute press junket about? It was about one thing. PUBLICITY. Since Tiger’s PR has been consistently duffing lately, I’m guessing Ari Fleischer had something to do with this before he resigned his services from the Tiger camp.

It was a clever PR move really. Tiger needed to get in front of the corporations/brands that have dropped him like a two-foot putt to woo them back as well as be seen by other brands that are seeking an endorser. There were two key messages he delivered during the interviews and he pounded these repeatedly in five minutes:

1) Tiger’s personal life is back in order

2) Tiger’s ready to play golf.

Oh there was a third, Buddhism is the answer to a chaotic life…and with that Tiger Woods exits (still wearing his “TW” logo cap and Nike apparel).

P.S. Jim Furyk did win his first golf tournament in two and a half years. Unfortunately, it ended up as a post-script on media outlets.

When his agent, Mark Steinberg, came out with a statement yesterday that Tiger will finally going to address the public and apologize for his no longer recent troubles with MRS. WOODS and the skanky ladies who look like Jersey Shore rejects, as a PR pro and Tiger fan, I pretty much said, “dude, it’s about time.”

Kissed, Made Up and Making Out

I wonder what other celebrity, public figure, brand that can keep quiet for more than three months before addressing the media and the public. I mean Toyota is getting grilled daily for taking a week to respond about its recall and here’s Tiger who’ll be strolling in this Friday at PGA Tour headquarters months later.  And it turns out, the public statement he will be making is simply that–a statement. He won’t be taking any questions from the press. Seriously, who does that? It boggles my PR mind.

What Tiger is doing reminds me of a Seinfeld episode where George Costanza (played by Jason Alexander) decides to do the complete opposite of every decision that he instinctively makes.  In the end, Costanza gets a job with the New York Yankees.

Will Tiger’s strategy of doing the opposite of what we in PR are accustomed to work out for him in the end like Costanza? I guess we’ll have to wait. If Tiger gets a job with the Yankees, then we’ll know his PR strategy was a_________________.

That was fiction. Toyota’s crisis is all too real. Is the Toyota name done? After decades of developing a carefully crafted message that Toyota vehicles were safe and superior to American cars, this recall can destroy all that.

Suzy Welch put it best in a tweet below:

Do you think the Toyota name is poisoned like the fictional company in Mad Men? Share what you think.

From experience, I base all the information I write on press releases and pitches that I feed reporters from the spec sheets provided by my client. As PR pros, we have the challenging task of finding the unique selling proposition of every new model or version of product that comes out. I never ask my client whether the spec sheet has accurate information or not. And we shouldn’t! So I don’t blame the Barnes & Noble PR team for not knowing the accurate weight until David Pogue called them on it because just like Pogue, these PR folks are referencing a spec sheet from a client that we accept at face value.

What irks me (and hopefully other PR pros like me that have an ounce of integrity left ) is the PR team’s reaction for being called out about the error whether it was intentional or not.  I absolutely agree with Pogue that the reply from the Barnes & Noble’s spokesperson was a complete attempt to spin the issue in their favor. The statement provided looked to me as a canned response from a crisis communications playbook that was created in the early 90′s.  When will PR pros learn that those days are gone? Stop the spinning and be truthful about your error? When making a mistake, apologize and make things right.  This is the age of social media and what you say and do will live online forever.

Another lesson that PR pros must remember and never overlook here is that reporters (and in this case, their daughters) have inquisitive minds.

Trust me, the truth shall set you back, but it will also set you free.

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.

Anyone with half a brain understands that computer glitches happen. During the course of the day, I’m sure you’ve had to reboot at least once, I know I have to about once every two hours, but that’s another story.  What happened today at BestBuy.com was obviously a computer or human error.  I hope it’s the former so no one will get fired.

In case you were not around Wednesday morning, BestBuy.com posted the greatest deal in the history of online shopping. A 52-inch Samsung TV for $9.99.  Upon realizing the pricing error, Best Buy came out with a statement stating “while we are truly embarrassed that this occurred, Best Buy will not be able to honor the $9.99 price.” Ouch!

Without knowing how many TV sets were bought by customers online (I assume there weren’t many because they determined the error within a few hours) and how much the company would have lost in sales, it would’ve been great if Best Buy had honored the price.  Only if it were a perfect world where customers who purchased the same item for the full price WILL NOT complain about those that got this deal and with the understanding that only one TV will be given per customer who bought one, Best Buy would’ve made history.  Here’s how:

- Whatever losses Best Buy incurs, it’ll make up with the positive publicity that it could have milked for days, if not, weeks, instead of the negative commentary and bad jokes on social network sites that will live forever.  I’m betting that whatever amount in lost sales the electronics retailer experiences, the dollar equivalent from all the positive media coverage will be far more significant.

- Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson would have become a household name and probably even be considered as a guest on Oprah maybe even hold a Beer Summit at The White House. At the very least, he’ll be on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

- Best Buy doesn’t have any competition to worry about.  Seriously, I believe a move like this will even increase Best Buy’s market share and bring more customers to their stores instead of driving them away to shop at regional retailers like 6th Avenue Electronics or P.C. Richard & Son.

- Consumers will be commending Best Buy versus cursing it. One consumer even started a web site that calls out the Best Buy error. Welcome to the social media era.

- You can’t put a price tag on goodwill especially during tough economic times.  Best Buy will be a company to be emulated by other big box retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, etc.

Disclaimer: I wasn’t one of the consumers who bought the TV online for $9.99. Opinions expressed here are simply my own and was not paid by Circuit City.

P.S. — This post is not a criticism of Best Buy’s topnotch PR team, which handled the crisis by the book.