George Clooney vs. Tiger Woods
December 11th, 2009 | by LaSean Smith
A promise is a big deal. Break one and bad things can happen. Namely people may lose trust in you.
I heard a great definition of trust a while back. I’m paraphrasing, but the gist was that people trust you when they can predict your behavior. Good or bad. So yes, you can even trust an evil person to be evil. It is critical for brands to establish trust with their audience. That’s core to the brand promise. Without that trust it’s almost impossible to build loyalty.
The media circus surrounding Tiger Woods got me to thinking about how this affects real-world brands. Tiger sold people on his focus, motivation, discipline and dedication. This combination pulled in non-golf fans who shared his values and/or were simply intrigued by his consistency. And then he let people down. He’s lost the trust of many fans and supporters. Sponsors like Gatorade and TAG have been the first to pull back. I expect others will follow suit. All is not lost. Tiger the brand can still thrive, but it will need to be repositioned. Proof point? Kobe Bryant.
The thing that most intrigues me with the Tiger story is that he could have avoided it all. If he never got married in the first place, this would be a non-story. He’d just be perceived as a playboy. Fans may not have shared those values, but his actions wouldn’t have evoked such strong reactions. Some would argue he would be less valuable as a brand without the family values attached. I would counter that brands should be true to the values they can sustain, not those that may generate the most revenue. The reason is simple. We’ll screw up at some point if we try to fake it. And if Tiger knew he was this way he should have stayed single. Tiger should have pulled a George Clooney. We trust George to be George – the perpetual bachelor who dates hot women. As a result, there’s no fanfare when he shows up with his newest girlfriend. You may not agree with this lifestyle, but his consistency is something we can learn from.
The Bottom Line: Figure out who you want to be and then make sure you don’t promise your customers something you can’t deliver.
