Strive Notes

It’s a story that seems to roll on and on and I’ve been hesitant to chip in with my two pennies’ worth because so much as already been said by so many.  But here’s a summary:  for perhaps the first time in his life, it sucks to be Tiger Woods.

He’s been caught stepping out on his wife.  It seems he’s been doing it quite a lot.  From the outside, it seems his marriage is under serious threat.  It’s a mess.

But it’s not like Tiger has been dismembering teenagers in his basement.  He’s been a selfish, thoughtless cad yes, but that’s hardly unique. He’ll come back from this setback fairly easily and probably a lot sooner than predicted.

So instead of waxing lyrical about what a PR disaster this is for Tiger and his sponsors, I  thought it might be fun to devote this week’s Top 5 to Tiger in the PR blogosphere.  So here we go.

1.  In his post, here’s what newsrooms can learn from the Tiger Woods story, digital journalist  Robert Niles dissects how the story broke about the golfer’s mishap with a tree took over the news agenda throughout the Thanksgiving holiday period.  After admonishing reporters for not checking basic facts as the story of Tiger’s car accident broke, Robert goes on to encourage journalists to report the news in full.  Those reporters who covered the accident without reference to a National Enquirer’s earlier story alleging Tiger’s infidelity failed give readers the necessary context to fully understand the story.

Robert says, ” I understand that newsrooms such as the Times’ don’t want to engage in tawdry reports about celebrities’ private lives. But once they ran with the story that Woods was in serious condition, they were obligated to report that story fully. And that requires acknowledging the Enquirer report and the circumstances that led to so much speculation about a fight between the couple.”

2.  A good discussion played out on Heather Yaxley’s post, Tiger Woods and the PR Machine.  It’s interesting to see how the tone of the comments shift over time as daily revelations about Tiger’s private life continue to be exposed.   Should he comment publicly or stay quiet?

Heather says, “The media (and the public) see celebrity lives as soap opera and that’s what this really is. Why should he play the role of breaking down on Oprah and begging for fans’ forgiveness and all that other nonsense?”

3. Trevor Cook takes a different tact in his post Tiger Woods and the Marketing Problem.   He says, ” Given how desperately we want to believe in a human god, it didn’t take much peddling from Team Tiger for us to accept Woods as a modern deity.”

And concludes: ” So much of modern marketing is based around the creation of impossible, unattainable dreams. We are drawn to the images of perfection, just as powerfully we feel compelled to destroy them. It’s a fascinating dilemma.”

4. UK celebrity publicist and author Mark Borkowski blogged about how the Tiger Woods PR disaster could scare brands off sports stars for good.

He says, “Let’s get one thing straight: Tiger’s situation is no ordinary brand collapse. This is the high watermark for individual brand disintegration.”

5. Ed Lee, in Let the Spin Begin reflects on Tiger’s announcement that he’s stepping out of public life indefinitely.  He says, “What a great move from Team Woods to allow those sponsors who wanted to cut ties, to step down gracefully.”

The toughest thing about putting this list together has been to keep it to just five items.  Google Blogs lists almost 30 million mentions of Tiger.  But I enjoyed reading these five.

Filed under: public relations