Naoki Hiroshima
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So Tiger did his big press conference… Some feel he did not get asked the tough questions… some feel he was dispassionate and some couldn’t really care less. I happen to fall in the “couldn’t care less” category. I don’t think he owes anyone an apology other than his wife, family and people he directly affected. I want him to just play golf. I don’t care who he sleeps with, if he fights with his wife, if she is staying or leaving, if the other women are upset, or just about anything else having to do with the so-called scandal. I just want to watch him play golf!
Tiger Woods The Golfer
As for the marketing side of things? I don’t really think there will be too much fall out from this entire scandal, especially if we were to win The Masters this week. He is still the best golfer on the planet and he is still the biggest draw the golf world is likely to see for many years to come. The fans were yelling “welcome back Tiger” all day yesterday as he walked down the fairways at hallowed Augusta. You see… true sports fans don’t really care what he did or does away from sports… and that is important to remember.
As the Mouth That Roared at the social media agency, The Big Fat Mouth, people ask me all the time what i think of the scandal and what it will mean for marketing with celebrities in the future. I always tell them the same thing – absolutely nothing! People love athletes and celebrities and they will always be drawn to them. We are a voyeuristic society and we want to know what is going on with the people we admire. Some people revel in the mistakes that they make while others don’t care. When I watch Tiger Woods play golf I am not looking for parenting or relationship tips, I am looking for him to play golf! As long as he does that well he will continue to be a marketing Juggernaut. You didn’t see Nike go out and sponsor a slew of new golfers did you? No, of course not. They know Tiger will be back and likely stronger than ever. He actually appears to be human now.
Although Tiger is not active in social media himself, he is a big topic. People love to talk about him and everything that surround him. Many other athletes however are active in social media and they are the ones that will be changing the way marketers work with athletes. As these athletes build bigger and bigger fan bases on social media platforms, they are going to become more desirable to marketers. The formula is really no different than it has been for years. Brand marketers want eyeballs and now the eyeballs are in social media rather than mass media. You tell me which is more powerful, a TV commercial that reaches 10 million random people across every demographic or 2 million targeted people following an athlete who have all opted in and basically said “I want to hear what this guy has to say.” Of course it is the opted in, targeted list that is more valuable. That is not to say that mass media is going away any time soon, because clearly it is not, but niche media through social platforms is certainly chipping away the power of the mass media. One message on Twitter from an athlete, celebrity or anyone with a large following can easily have as much, if not more impact than any :30 second spot. If I were in the business of creating ads, I would be awfully scared right now.
The most exciting part of this social media becoming more powerful than mass media phenomenon is that the control has been taken away from the big guys and put into to the hands of the every day man. Look at any social media platform and you can find regular people with tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands or more fans/followers. These are people who would never see the light of day via mass media channels unless they committed a crime or cheated on their wife (OK, I had to tie it back to Tiger Woods somewhere). Web celebrities like Fred would not exist without social media, yet they are signing mass media type endorsement and marketing deals as a result of the audience they have created. The really interesting thing here is not the fact that people can become celebrities through social media, but rather the fact that viewers can choose exactly what they want to watch and tune out the rest. All of the garbage that many networks produce and show every day could fall upon deaf ears in the not so distant future as people continue to customize what outlets they read and watch. Social media provides both choice and opportunity on both sides of the fence.
So what does this mean for all of us moving forward? I guess one day in the future we might actually be able to watch Tiger Woods just play golf, which is what he is paid to do, rather than hear about things that many people don’t really care about. If the time should come when I need help with my relationship with my wife or kids, I could always navigate my way over to DrPhil.com. Until then is www.TheMasters.com for me!
By: Jonathan Ressler
http://bigfatcrumbs.wordpress.com/