John Tantillo’s Winner and Loser of The Week

Brand Winner...	And Loser...

John Tantillo’s Winner and Loser of The Week: 

Winner:  Tiger Woods

Loser:  NASA                                                    

Winner: 

Tiger might not have won on Sunday at the Chevron World Challenge, but make no mistake the world’s greatest golfer is back.

He only lost by one stroke and the close competition was genuinely exciting. 

More than that, you need to remember what Woods has gone through in the past year.  Twelve months ago many people were predicting that he wouldn’t have even set foot on a golf course by this time.   Instead, he’s been battling to hold ground against the odds and has come very close to actually doing it.

Given the game of golf’s basic difficulty and profound challenge to any consistency of play, Tiger has shown that his ultimate comeback is secure. 

A few months ago, I argued that while I’m certainly not anti-marriage or anti-morals, the fact was that since Tiger was what we call a performance brand, his sexual exploits and divorce, were only distractions from his golfing destiny.  Performance brands stay in the spotlight by winning on the field of play.  As long as they keep winning, their brands basically stay strong.

Bottom line, as long as Tiger continues to improve and perform at or near the best on the golf course, he will only get stronger.  2011 should be all Tiger’s.

Stay tuned.

Loser:

Folks, NASA just isn’t using its noggin.

The once great agency that inspired generations to dream has resorted to the worst kind of public relations tactics to generate interest in its programs and remind the American people of its relevance.

This past week, we were treated to an announcement announcing a big announcement coming two days later.  This big announcement was supposed to have to do with extra-terrestrial life.

The press speculated that perhaps NASA had found definitive proof of life off of Earth.

No such case.  Instead when the announcement came, we learned that it concerned the discovery that a micro-organism could survive when one of the five key essential ingredients of life as we have known them was replaced with arsenic.

What in the name of Neil Armstrong is going on here?

Sure, this is a very big deal for astro biologists, those scientists who specialize in life off earth, but it was classic public relations bait and switch.  The people who made the release knew –or should have known— that the people were waiting for big news –probably the discovery of off-world life. 

Frankly, as important as the actual news was, it couldn’t help but be disappointing.  And, as it turns out, the “discovery” doesn’t even prove that life could evolve this way –only that it could be altered to survive this way.

Bottom line, NASA seems to be playing the same kind of game that many museums and distinguished scientific and medical organizations have begun to play lately: in the effort to capture the public’s imagination, they have resorted to making claims and ginning up stories in very unscientific ways.

There’s a boy who cried wolf dynamic here.  If you keep shouting about big discoveries without actually making them, sooner or later people will stop paying attention when you shout. 

Not only that, but if you’re a scientific institution like NASA you’ll begin to lose credibility.  And in science, credibility is arguably the most important thing you’ve got, especially where the public purse strings are concerned.

Some may argue that PR is exactly what NASA did back in the Apollo golden age.  But that PR was different.  Why?  Because NASA was actually doing something monumental that deserved all the hype.  We wanted to hear every little detail about the astronauts because they really were leaping into the beyond, pushing mankind forward and taking incredible risks far from home.

My advice for NASA is stay true to your scientific mission and remember Apollo.  If you do this, you’ll never have to worry about finding an audience –they’ll find you.  A human mission to Mars –now we’ve got a press release!

And, remember, things are always easier when you keep marketing and branding in mind.