Category Archives: Brand

Tiger Woods: Seven Lessons on Tarnishing a Platinum Personal Brand

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Tiger Woods personal brand is worth Millions.  Your personal Brand may be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars every week, month, or year.  What are people saying about your personal and business Brand?  What are you doing “NOW” to present yourself and your professional services or business offerings with Social Media.  Can you be Found?

The Author, Hajj E. Flemings has great comments found on  Brand Camp University – Mike Macey | Influencer

This great article was written by Author: Hajj E. Flemings, Brand Camp University.

Tiger_Header_Platinum_web

Does platinum tarnish?  The answer is no, due to it’s high purity which is the way most people felt about Tiger Woods personal brand, that it could never be tarnished.  He has been the embodiment of focus, drive, and winning.  The world’s first billion dollar athlete who until November 25th had a seemingly impeccable reputation that most people and brands admired and envied.

Sponsorship Impact

  • 80-90% of his annual earnings are from endorsements.
  • His approval rating has dropped 18%.
  • Gatorade, Accenture, and Gillette sponsorships dropped.
  • Pac-10 has pulled their ad with Tiger Woods.

Seven Lessons all Personal Brands can learn from the Tiger Woods Situation

  • Be Authentic: A personal brand should not be a make believe image that you cannot live up to.  Whether you are a billion dollar athlete or not packaging your personal brand in away that is consistent with your lifestyle is important.
  • There is always somebody watching: We live in a digital world that is online 24/7 that archives every step of your digital footprint.  Understand everything you do will come to light so live your life as though everybody is watching. When the public makes you how you are, you sacrifice your privacy for brand equity, fame, and fortune.  Remember your personal brand cannot be compartmentalized.
  • Reputation is NEVER more important than Character: What is more important reputation or character?  Tiger is the poster child for impeccable reputation.  Reputation by definition can be distorted which was clearly the case for Tiger.  Strong character can be developed.
  • Who in your inner circle?: Do you have a person or people who are not bought, not “YES” people, but individuals who are capable of giving you sound advice.  “YES” people make you feel good that will literally destroy your life and your brand.  You need people around you who will help you to stay accountable especially as your influence and personal brand grows.
  • Understand the 30-Second Rule: How long does it take to build a strong brand?  It takes a lifetime to develop a strong reputation and 30-seconds to destroy it.  Think before you act.
  • Where is your Focus?: Whatever you focus on is what will grow.  What you focus on creates actions, those actions create habits, those habits are the foundation of your personal brand.
  • What is your Personal brand Connected to? As your personal brand grows and your influence expands your every decision impacts future opportunities, future earnings, and the strategic partners you are connected to.

Conclusion

Will Tiger continue to make money?  The answer to that question is yes.  Has Tiger Woods personal brand been tarnished?  Absolutely.  Can it be restored?  Absolutely.  The strength of our personal brands are determined by our character, which is a product of our habits.  If you don’t want to Tiger your personal brand think about the seven lessons that I have listed and the value of your character.

Disappointing Disappointment About Vanity Fair’s “Tweethearts” Article

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Vanity Fair may want to follow Twitter and monitor their Brand.  The head of the Social Media department at Conde Nast will be happy to know they can use FREE app TweetDeck to monitor what people are tweeting about this story.
Mike Macey | Thinker
Mark Drapeau

Mark Drapeau

Cheeky Geeky

Jan. 10 2010

Vanity Fair, one of my favorite regular reads, recently published a short article about “America’s Tweethearts” – young women who have a lot of followers on Twitter…and are not coincidentally very attractive. Not that they’re popular only because they’re attractive – they are some talented people (I know about half of them personally, and adore and respect them) – but Vanity Fair is not exactly in the business of profiling the ugly of society. So, the magazine chose a number of undeniably attractive, Twitter-popular (the value of this is highly questionable too, though no one seems outraged at this aspect of the article) young business women, and wrote what amounts to a quick blog post for a well-respected magazine.I’ll say up front, as someone who knows some of the women, knows about the others, and knows quite a bit about Twitter – this is a stupid fucking article. Okay?? Got it? I think it’s idiotic.  It’s dumb, it’s horrible, it’s amateur. I would be embarrassed to have my name on that byline. The article has almost zero useful content to me and to most of the ladies’ tech-savvy fans, I’m sure. But so what? What does that mean? Should there really be outrage? There have been innumerable critiques and comments on the Vanity Fair piece (here’s one from Salon), and I’m not going to link to them ad nausem. But generally the mood was “disappointed,” as one of the photographed, Felicia Day, commented on her in post, which has already garnered about 200 comments.

Disappointed about what? That Vanity Fair doesn’t cover technology well? (It ain’t TechCrunch.) That it wasn’t an article focused on the ladies’ business skills? (It ain’t the Wall Street Journal.) That they treated the subjects like cheerleaders? (After they posed together in trench coats in a photo that can only suggest to viewers that they’re naked underneath.) Give me a break. It’s a silly article about a technology, that while very useful, people still find silly. And the average tweet is silly. The name Twitter is silly. The article reflects society and the magazine’s readers, who probably don’t use Twitter, and probably think it’s silly. WHO CARES. I don’t see how this is offensive to Twitter users – I’m fine with less people understanding a technology that I know how to take advantage of. That’s a good thing.

So let’s get real about this non-situation. These ladies were the focus of an article published in a print magazine about people and vanity. The magazine doesn’t have a track record of understanding technology very well, or using it themselves. The article wasn’t guest written by Pete Cashmore, it was written by an author with less than 200 followers on Twitter. What did everyone expect would happen? I suspect that some, like Felicia, were blinded by the idea of being in Vanity Fair and put high hopes above rational expectations. Ladies, disappointed or not, you’re in Vanity Fair. I don’t care if they made fun of your tweeples and twosses, and focused on your legs, that’s still cool. Don’t worry about this article – start plotting your next one. You’re clearly all talented and going places. Maybe one of you will even end up running social media operations at Conde Nast – they need help.