By John Durante
The public unraveling of Tiger Woods’ private life is the latest dish in America’s insatiable appetite for the excoriation of our so-called cultural icons. The names Clinton, Spears and dozens of others before Tiger have all been associated with similar story arcs. Tiger’s fall from grace attracts us with the same “wreck on the highway” paradox: We can’t bear to look —yet we can’t bear to stop.
It will long be discussed — sometimes heatedly — whether Tiger’s PR strategy during this initial wave of magnified turbulence about car crashes and alleged infidelity was a smart approach. No doubt he is served by a bevy of aides (unfortunately, most of them probably lawyers playing at PR) trying to best manage the fallout to his marriage, social life, endorsement career, dignity, golf swing, reputation and self concept. Such a crowded plate likely means many well-intended activities will be tried. But so far, authenticity is not among them.
A public mea culpa, because it comes after the scandal, always begins at a disadvantage. The story is already out there and has been festering, growing like a mold on a public reputation. In this environment, an authentic mea culpa is the singularly most effective way to start the process of personal, public and commercial redemption. But for puzzling reasons, this seems to be escaping the Woods team at the moment. Right now the world is his stage with the spotlight shining brightly and the best the Tiger team can do for one of the world’s most beloved athletes is insist on a deafening silence outside the tightly controlled world of his own web site. While Woods has twice posted words of contrition to his site, there is no way to judge the authenticity of his statements without seeing Woods or hearing from him personally. In this way, Tiger has failed the first test of what we at WordWrite have learned about successful communication: the story has to be authentic, rooted in fact.
Second, the storyteller has to be fluent — someone who is seen by the audience as a person they respect. Outside of his sport, it’s debatable whether Tiger had been seen as a fluent spokesperson for much of anything beyond paid product endorsements. Lacking such context, confining the “story” of the incident to mere web statements comes off as more cynical than effective, eroding his status as a credible storyteller. Our society has always enjoyed a little perverse glee in seeing the elite stumble with feet of clay. And in our current dumbed-down, financially tapped, bloated social fog nothing brings us a momentary jolt of satisfaction like exposing the human frailty of our best or brightest. But we remain (in most corners at least) a forgiving people who easily offer to our heroes second, third and even fourth chances.
This benefit is increasingly reserved for those who authentically communicate, not stonewall. The timeless elegance of the authentic story — forthright communication with a beginning, middle and end — would serve Tiger well during days that surely must be dark for him. Only by authentically spelling out what happened, what he he learned and what’s next, can Tiger move on from this debacle. Here’s hoping someone around him candidly speaks to him about doing the same with us.
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John Durante is senior marketing associate for WordWrite Communications.
