No one transforms sports legends into brands better than Nike – with Michael Jordan as the ultimate example. With 6 NBA Championships, a foray into Major League Baseball and a footwear and apparel following that makes retailers still weep with joy nearly a decade after his retirement, brand Jordan is like an MBA case study on unlocking the potential of a brand. And Nike was on its way to replicating this success, with LeBron.

Using my focus group of five – the starters on my son’s championship Pee Wee basketball team – I’d say LeBron was beating Jordan hands down. (This was the same group that in 2nd grade indicated they know Michael Jordan – he makes nice shoes.). Of these ten-year-old basketball aficionados, 4 out of 5 wear LeBron’s gear religiously – and all five of them, plus most of the bench, wear Nike basketball sneakers exclusively – leaving Converse scratching their head about where they went wrong with marketing Dwayne Wade’s apparel.

Then came The Decision.

Nike is no stranger to spokesperson scandal. They stood behind Tiger Woods throughout his marital trouble. But what happens when the scandal isn’t in the athlete’s personal life, but is directly related to the game, and specifically the personal marketing of where he’ll be “bringing his talents”? And when the fans’ approval of the legend drops like a lead balloon?

If you are Nike, you make a commercial.

I can’t be sure about the intent of this “What Should I Do?” film, but portraying LeBron as the martyr seems like a misguided approach. No one is going to feel sorry for LeBron, no matter how many crucifixion poses you insert to portray James as a victim, while attempting to harken back to the happy days when the five-story We Are All Witnesses billboard served as a point of pride for Cleveland.

I think it’s safe to say that Nike isn’t actually trying to crowdsource a solution with “What Should I Do?” I think the question is a rhetorical one, designed to portray LeBron as being in a no-win position in order to garner fan sympathy.

What should LeBron do? Spare us the pity party and just play the game. And wait for a new sports legend to fall from grace or for some other event to occur that helps fans move on.

When dealing with a reputational crisis, sometimes the hardest thing to do is be quiet, go back to doing a great job at whatever you do, and wait. But sometimes, the problem can’t be communicated away, and it takes actions to restore confidence and trust of your stakeholders.

LeBron needs to Just Do It. Talk less. Play more. LeBron may never regain the hearts and minds of Cleveland. But bringing a championship to Miami might just improve his popularity, and sell lots of sneakers, too. Nike’s betting millions on it.

cwinters General Corporate LeBron James, Miami Heat, Michael Jordan, Nike, reputation, Scandal

I’ve been reading about this new site for anonymous online references, honestly.com, which bills itself as “truth in reputation.” They claim to be the anti-LinkedIn, with LinkedIn described as “PR” and Honestly.com described as “journalism.”

At the risk of being diverted by the backhanded reference to PR – my profession of choice – I would beg to differ. References, by their very nature, are rooted in the context of the reference. How long ago did you work with the candidate? In what capacity? What was the nature of your relationship (i.e., supervisor, subordinate, or peer?)? That context is key – and any reference, whether glowing, or lackluster, is only useful within that context.

There had been great discussion and debate about the role of social media in evaluating prospective employees, or service providers. For example, interviewees know that their Facebook profile is fair game, and should choose their postings carefully. But the notion of an online site for “unvarnished” reviews of people isn’t a useful tool – it is the digital version of a junior high slam book, or a way to get friends to pump up your reputation, without having to be accountable for that review and recommendation.

There is great danger in hiding behind electronic tools in the workplace. People say things via e-mail they would never say to a colleague in person. But even in that case, they still need to “own” what they’ve said. A productive conversation about a potential employee is a candid one – it highlights the person’s strengths, and gives guidance on how to support the person’s career development and performance relative to their weaknesses. Let’s face it, we all have weaknesses, and guidance on how to manage an individual effectively is something I welcome. What’s more, it tells me that the reference giver is as vested in the candidate’s success as I am. That speaks volumes for the reputation of the candidate, and the person providing the reference.

A person’s professional reputation is built over time, one project, one interaction and one position at a time. Abraham Lincoln said, “Character is the tree, reputation is the shadow.” Reviews on honestly.com are not likely to show you the tree or its shadow. They are more like shadow puppets – where it looks like a hawk or a bunny rabbit, but it’s really just someone’s hands.

cwinters General Corporate Facebook, Honestly.com, LinkedIn, References

It’s no secret seismic shifts are happening in media. Recently, the New York Times’ David Carr discussed his own transition to an online media outlet back in 2000 in light of two notable moves from top-tier print titles to online properties: Howard Kurtz (the “epicenter of mainstream media” according to Carr) from the Washington Post to The Daily Beast, and Howard Fineman from Newsweek to The Huffington Post.

While the move of prominent journalists from top-tier print to online-only outlets is a trend that is certainly newsworthy, I’m not convinced it tells the full story of what’s happening. What’s going on is far more than just Kurtz and Fineman, and not simply a shift from print to online.

When you think about the most influential names in certain corners of the media landscape – Politico’s Mike Allen, Fox’s Glenn Beck, Time/CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, among others – each of these individuals have become a transferable brand in their own right. There have always been famous journalists, but their outlet largely tied their recognition as a brand to a geography, specific medium, or outlet. Presently, there is a rapidly expanding group of brand names who are able to jump across mediums and outlets seamlessly, enabled and encouraged by the integration and digitization of media.

Examining the careers of two of the best known journalists in the nation – Bob Woodward of the Washington Post and Bob Schieffer of CBS News – both have been with their respective outlets for roughly 40 years. Can we imagine a relatively young but similarly eponymous reporter like Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times or Anderson Cooper of CNN to stay with their outlets for even the next 20 years? Already Cooper has branched out to CBS’ “60 Minutes,” and Sorkin’s book on the financial collapse, “Too Big to Fail”, resulted in more than modest grumbling in the newsroom about clashes with the traditional Times culture.

In short, we’re entering a period of media free agency. With little effort, audiences are now able to follow their favorite and most trusted reporters to new outlets and mediums, providing negotiating leverage beyond skill and experience for reporters who build a loyal audience. As an ancillary motivator, with ongoing layoffs at many top-tier media brands and online/integrated outlets having built scale to pay a premium, journalists are incentivized to build their own brand and look for greener pastures. It’ll be interesting to watch how this trend evolves, affects the cache of certain outlets relative to others, and changes how and what content outlets present.

cwinters General Corporate CNN, FOX, Media, New York Times, Newsweek, Politico, TIME, Washington Post

Every day, there is a book, a blog, an article or a discussion about the challenges of the “Trophy Generation” for managers….generally categorized as needy, entitled young people who want the corner office just for showing up. After all, they are the first generation where everyone made the team, and everyone got a trophy. What can they possibly understand about competition? (As the generation who grew up on American Idol instead of Atari, it seems to me that they might understand competition in our democratized society better than anyone.)

As a member of Generation X – a label I shunned as I worked 14 hours a day paying my dues while my GenX peers watched Reality Bites over and over on their VCRs, it occurs to me that each generation in the workforce has trouble understanding the generations that follow. They have different priorities, different motivations and a different point of view. Like the proverbial grandparent who walked to school barefoot, in the sleet and snow uphill, both ways, we all want the newbies to understand that we’ve worked hard to get where we are.

Perhaps the common experience of looking for a first job in a recession has made me sympathetic to our newest members of the workforce, who can’t like the Trophy label any more than I liked the GenX stereotype. Or maybe it is the fact that I am raising the Trophy Generation 2.0 in my own home. But it seems to me that blaming the “followers” for the challenges of leadership may be misguided. After all, the power of a leader rests with his or her ability to relate to all of the generations in the workforce, and mobilize them toward common goals. As careers grow longer, the multi-generational workforce is here to stay. And with each new generation in the workforce, the one prior moves up a rung, and gets to roll their eyes about the kids who just don’t get it.

Will leaders of the future be the ones with the fanciest degree? The best work ethic? The “smartest” ideas? Or will they be the ones with well developed Emotional IQ. That’s my takeaway from this Fast Company blog a friend shared on Facebook about the essence of great leadership. Leaders need to understand the needs of their followers and manage people individually to meet their needs. The notion that your team essentially mirrors you, and their self belief is a reflection of your belief in them is an interesting one. I can recall many occasions in my career when I was thrown in to the deep end, and unsure if I could swim…our CEO, and my mentor, always let me know that he believed I could handle it and would succeed. And for the most part, I have.

Great leaders see our individual potential. They help us see it, believe in it and translate that belief into achievement. That’s a reliable formula for any generation.

cwinters General Corporate American Idol, Atari, GenX, Leadership, Millenials

After a series of horrific mining accidents in recent years, the world was glued to their televisions for the ultimate happy ending…the rescue of 33 copper and gold miners after 69 days trapped under ground, including initial days when they were all presumed dead.

Every one of these men is a hero. Their courage is the stuff that Hollywood can only dream of (and certainly will). But at a time when panic, and the instinct to survive, would easily pit one man against another, this group apparently behaved in a manner for the collective good. Under the leadership of their shift manager, 54-year-old Luis Urzua, 33 men whose lives were in the balance for almost two months, banded together so they would all survive.

We don’t know much about Luis Urzua, except that he thinks of himself as a miner, not a hero, a TV star or even a leader. We know that he kept order, even when he knew the crew was in for a much longer ordeal than most of them realized. We know that he stretched 2 days of food for 48 days. We also know that he was the last one out of the mine, and that he credited God, not himself, for the men having the will to resist the temptations that would have meant death for some, or all of them.

I doubt that whoever had the wisdom, or good luck, to hire Urzua could have predicted this scenario, or how he would perform. I doubt he read any of the leadership guru books on behaviors or philosophies of leadership. And it is unlikely that any training he received on the job could have prepared him for this incredible leadership task….he just had the “right stuff” for the job.

A recent MWW Group survey of leaders at the World Business Forum indicates that leaders are born, not made.

Case in point.

cwinters Executive Visibility Chile Mine Rescue, Leadership

This article popped up when I opened the Internet, and to be candid, I am not sure what made me click on it. But I was surprised to see that the Career Builder list of jobs that are worth the stress included working in public relations. Sure, PR can be stressful…the stakes can be high, the deadlines intense, and a 40-hour work week is unheard of. But I never really thought of it as being up there with life and death jobs like piloting an aircraft or performing surgery.

It got me thinking, what makes this career worth it, beyond the compensation? Because people who are great at it, don’t do it for the check:

• Variety – public relations executives, particularly those who work on the agency side of the business, experience great variety of companies, industries and challenges every day. If you get excited by “new” – it’s a great job for you.

• Executive access and interaction – working in PR provides exposure and opportunities to collaborate with the most senior executives of our client companies, and relatively early in our careers. For some, a seat at the CEOs table requires decades of working your way up until you have a job with a C in the title. I’ve been meeting with CEOs since I was in my 20s…and I’ve learned a lot about leadership, and the power of communications, from those opportunities.

• Sometimes, it is make or break. When a company files for bankruptcy, a good communications program can be the difference between reorganizing and liquidating. Effective crisis management can save a reputation, and a Company (not to mention preserving thousands of jobs.) A great public health campaign can literally save lives.

Great reasons to get up and come to work every day.

cwinters General Corporate Career Builder, Stress

My mother is a breast cancer survivor, two times over. I love seeing NFL players wearing pink. I cheer for advocacy programs that encourage women to get mammograms. And like everyone, I hope that my daughter’s generation will not have to fear breast cancer like the prior generations of women. I’d love my two-year-old niece to never see a pink ribbon, because we don’t need them anymore.

Tara Parker Pope’s piece about Pink Ribbon fatigue struck a chord. She argues that while these campaigns have raised millions of dollars, and worked wonders for awareness – sparking copycat ribbons in every color for every cause – we are nowhere in the actual fight against breast cancer.

Are we at the beginning of a pink ribbon backlash? As marketers queue up for the privilege of going pink, will they soon be subjected to criticism of “pink-washing” their products, without making a difference in the actual cause? We already know that all pink is not created equal. We also know that the new Facebook campaign about where women “like it” (referring to where they leave their handbags) is causing some to ask the relevance question.

What does any of this have to do with the practice of public relations, and reputation?

A lot. For a cause program to be effective it needs to be relevant (to the business and to the target audiences), authentic and ownable. And it shouldn’t be something that requires issues management contingency planning.

Many brands find it tempting to jump on the pink bandwagon. Most would consider it safe…I would have before today. (Not ownable, but that is another blog for another day).

It is important to remember that cause marketing needs to be equal parts cause and marketing, meaning good for all involved. The pink issue also raises an important distinction between advocacy and action. Certainly, those two things work together. But awareness is an important first step. But is it an end game? Or is the real end game engaging people and motivating them to act (beyond just buying the product). How do we change behavior? Change outcomes?

A great cause program is mutually beneficial…to the cause, and to the brand. So it’s great to sell pink blenders, blankets and ball gowns. It is even better to do so, while advancing cures.

cwinters General Corporate Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Facebook, NFL, Pink Ribbon

I had the opportunity to attend a presentation by brand futurist Martin Lindstrom at last week’s World Business Forum. It was an interesting day listening to thought leaders discuss their insights on the principles of leadership and innovation.

Mark Lindstrom’s session was about marketing and why we buy. His point of view is that the future of branding is moving toward non-conscious symbolics, the symbols of a brand that are not the actual brand logo. Lindstrom supports that 85%-90% of communications today is absorbed into the non-conscious part of the brain, and that this new non-conscious symbolism is fueling the battle ground for brands.

Lindstrom discussed his project “buyology” – a fascinating neuromarketing study that analyzes the relationship between consumer behavior and the brain’s reaction to marketing techniques, brand messages and visual cues. The study suggests that consumer purchasing behaviors are driven by subconscious cues which Lindstrom refers to as “smashable symbolics.” Smashable symbolics are those attributes of a brand without the logo.

Think about the smashable symbolics of brands we engage with every day… color cues such as Coke’s red aluminum can (Coke) or Ronald McDonald’s red and yellow costume; visual cues such as Apple’s silhouette image with ear buds; icons such as the Microsoft arrow or the Apple product interface; sound cues such as the Rocky theme song or the AT&T ring tune. Each of these is a smashable component symbolic of its respective brand.

Lindstrom encourages marketers to smash their brand. A bit of quick research I found explains the concept behind a smashable brand. The term dates back to 1915 when Coca-Cola asked the bottle designer to make a bottle that could be recognized even if was smashed into tiny pieces. According to Lindstrom, everything a marketer does should be able to survive without the logo. When you look at your brand how many pieces can be recognized that don’t include the logo?

We know that consumers today have lost trust in brands and are not brand loyal. If marketers can better understand the subconscious cues that lead to purchasing behavior brand loyalty will change forever. Everything a marketer does to reach consumers must be able to survive without the logo. This is the future of true branding and marketing communications.

As marketers we need to ask ourselves, do I own smashable symbolics and can my brand survive without the logo?

ablate MWW Group brand, consumer behavior, marketing, World Business Forum

For the past two days, I’ve been lucky enough to participate in the World Business Forum, where speakers with unbelievable credentials provided their individual prescriptions for success today, and tomorrow.

At the MWW Group panel discussion on leadership, Jim Quigley, Deloitte’s global CEO, shared his view that if you take care of your people, and take care of your brand and reputation, growth will take care of itself. This is a formula he’s used to lead Deloitte to the position of being Number 1 among the big accounting firms – an announcement Deloitte made this week.

Over the course of the two days, a lot of speakers echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of having the right people in the right seats, making sure they are passionate about what they do and providing them with the leadership and the environment where disruption is not only invited, but expected.

What struck me most was that some of the best of advice was very intuitive, and was simple, common sense – the kind our grandparents advocated.

P&G’s former CEO A.G. Lafley was asked what his “do-over” would be, if he could have one. He recounted a story of passing on an opportunity to make the Rx to OTC switch for a leading allergy medication, and summed it up as follows:

“I ignored my gut, and deferred to the collective expertise of others.”

Effective leadership, in any time, is common sense, and this is the WBF’s common sense formula for leaders:

• Build the right organization – have the right people in the right seats. Are they passionate? Are they collaborative? Are they useful? Are they smarter than you?

• Focus on the right things – most spend two-thirds of their time focused on managing productivity and the here and now, and one-third (and many would say that is being generous) focusing on the future. Leaders and managers need to flip that ratio. We need to be like Wayne Gretzky, and skate to where the puck is going to be.

• Worry about your most important businesses the most – we often focus great energy on small problems that are not material to the organization. When things are “fine” is the time to be worrying….so you can anticipate and adapt before problems occur.

• Invite and embrace constant change. Disrupt yourself, or others will.

After two days of great conversation, thought-provoking topics, and advice to more than 4,000 business leaders, the question is this – What will we do differently on Monday?

cwinters General Corporate, MWW Group Deloitte, Proctor & Gamble, World Business Forum

There’s a great blog by the Washington Post on the World Business Forum, including our panel, noting that his key takeaway from our discussion was the importance of building trust for leaders to be effective today. If you missed the Forum, he’s got some great recaps of speakers like Charlene Li, Martin Lindstrom, Joseph Grenny and David Gergen.

I agree with his takeaway. But to quote innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan, a WBF day 2 speaker, just because something is simple doesn’t mean it is easy.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to maintaining trust is that it takes consistent effort over time to establish, and only one false step to damage it. Your stakeholders’ trust is renewed – or not – with every interaction or observation about your company.

How can you rebuild trust today? (Hint – it takes more than just transparency)

o Leaders, companies and brands must create personal connections – open and clear communication was something that was discussed all throughout the World Business Forum, not just at our panel. Jim Quigley of Deloitte said it best when he said “If you want people to follow you, you have to make a personal connection.”

o But before you communicate and connect, walk the talk….well done is more important that well said.

o Have a leader – usually the CEO – who is the keeper of the flame – who makes earning and keeping trust central to his or her position and priorities. Arkadi Kuhlman, Chairman of ING Direct had some great advice about the need for a CEO who is authentic, who can connect on an emotional level, and articulate a hopeful, aspirational vision for the future. “The only way out of our reality today,” he said, “is to step forward.”

Simple. But not always easy.

cwinters General Corporate, MWW Group Deloitte, ING Direct, World Business Forum