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John Tantillo’s Winner... and Loser: Donald Trump and David Letterman
Posted by The Marketing Doctor at 6/17/2009 4:59 PM 
Categories: Branding
Tags: Prejean late night apology personal brand Conan marketing Miss USA Tantillo tv show branding Sarah Palin Miss California Letterman Trump
Categories: Branding
Tags: Prejean late night apology personal brand Conan marketing Miss USA Tantillo tv show branding Sarah Palin Miss California Letterman Trump
Brand Winner… | And Loser |
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John Tantillo’s Winner and Loser of The Week:
Winner: Donald Trump
Loser: David Letterman
Folks, I usually avoid putting two personal brands head-to-head, but this week the real marketing lessons are too important not to put them head-to-head. Remember, as always, even if we’re talking about personal/celebrity brands, the points apply just as readily to business.
The Winner
Folks, Mr. Trump has finally done the right thing for the Miss USA and the Miss California USA brands.
He's taken the Marketing Doctor's advice and fired Miss Prejean.
Unfortunately, the waffling has probably damaged these brands, since Trump, an excellent promoter but a poor marketer, overlooked long-term, real marketing strategy.
Real marketing strategy requires an understanding of what makes your brand really tick. In the case of a beauty contest, it is the appearance of fairness, the basic humility of the crowned winner and the enforcement of the rules.
It was painfully obvious when Trump made his first announcement that Miss Prejean had broken the rules of the organization and, because of her focus on developing an independent career, probably had little intention of fulfilling her duties as Miss California USA. Simply put, Miss Prejean’s agenda has always seemed to be to promote her own brand, rather than that of the state she was chosen to represent.
Every brand has certain rules that make it credible in people’s eyes. This is never more true than with sports and contest organizations like Trump’s. Why was the steroid scandal so important for Major League Baseball? Because it was about the credibility of the rules. Simply put: people lose faith in the legitimacy of a brand when the people who run it or compete in it don’t take the rules seriously. When the rules become meaningless, no one wants to play.
Bottom line: the Miss Prejean story was never about gay marriage. It was always about a) did Miss Prejean have the diplomatic disposition to avoid self-promotion and carry out her duties as Miss California; and b) once it was clear that she didn’t, did the Miss USA brand have the strength and integrity to fire her?
At least now, both Miss Prejean and Miss USA/Miss California USA can move forward —Miss Prejean building her own personal brand, and Miss USA/Miss California USA repairing the damage done by not dealing with the problem correctly in the first place.
For taking the essential step (if belatedly) of firing Miss Prejean, Donald Trump is a tentative winner. Maybe in the future, he’ll consider using real marketing to keep his powerful promotional tendencies in check. Maybe, just maybe, he’s beginning to get the marketing concept.
The Loser
As if to prove that not all publicity is good publicity, we’ve got David Letterman.
David Letterman is a man who has consummately built a brand right on the edge of good taste.
He’s no shock jock, but he has always been able to say outrageous things, push the envelope and basically get away with it night after night.
But not this time. The Sarah Palin flap shows a real weakness in the Letterman brand: his edginess and his inability to genuinely apologize.
Of course, the edginess and the inability to genuinely apologize is part of his brand, and therein lies the problem. Asked to apologize, he did so, and then made more jokes, because his snide, nothing-is-really-serious brand is at odds with the need to sometimes be sincere. His edginess attracts viewers, but it has also led to conflict over the years (Oprah, Madonna, John McCain, et al.).
A great brand takes years to develop, but a single bad step can be fatal. Of course, whenever you examine the reasons behind the decline of a brand, you will almost always see that the flaw was there for years, and the single step was really just the last in a series of missteps.
With Letterman, the recurring flaw is arrogance. As one of our few media “institutions,” he has adopted an “I-can-do-no-wrong” attitude, which is never good for a brand. The most successful and enduring brands remain responsive to what the consumer wants throughout the life of the brand.
Bottom line: when a brand has done wrong, it must make a clean break and apologize.
Update
This week’s Winner/Loser was a little delayed (things are busy in real marketing land), and as a result there’s an important update on the story: as of Monday night, Letterman has turned around and delivered a much fuller apology, with no apparent sarcasm. With people rallying outside his studio for his head, Letterman had to do something, and it looks like he did.
We’ll see if it calms the outrage. The apology sounds like it hit exactly the right notes, but it comes at least a week too late.
From a brand perspective, I think the damage has been done. At best, it looks as if Letterman was uninformed (i.e., his claim that he didn’t know which daughter he was talking about) and arrogant. It might not take as much as you think to have Letterman’s image suddenly stick as that cranky old guy. This would be the kiss-of-death in the highly competitive late night talk show arena, with Conan O’Brien poised to take the younger demographic away.
Fact is, the next step for Letterman is to sin no more and remember the viewers who put him where he is today (and can take it all away).
And remember, it’s always easier when you keep marketing and branding in mind.
TODAY'S TANTILLO TAKEAWAY -
Publicity is nothing if it doesn’t fit within a real marketing framework.
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