THE GOLDEN TIGER

Remember the fairy tale where the villagers trying to steal the feathers of the Golden Goose became stuck to the goose and to each other forcing them to trail behind the goose wherever it went in a conga-line of the greedy, congealed together by their own self-interest.

And you can imagine the length of the conga-line behind the first billion dollar athlete so it’s not surprising that after the fall, Tigers management firm, IMG, set to work to re-invent their Golden Tiger. To watch his handlers work is a blueprint for marketers current and future, especially those that specialize in fallen angles. Just as the battle plans of Alexander the Great are studied at West Point so IMG’s plan which I have named “Back from Perdition” will be taught at Wharton.

In my opinion the plan is as follows:

Step one: Know the history of your public: "We are a society of second chances.” Says Tigers IMG agent “That's been proven over the years.”

Step 2:  Take the current temperature of your public.

Tiger's agent, Mark Steinberg took a poll that he says shows Tigers market appeal to be "very powerful, positive, positive results."

Step 3: Pound away at the concept of redemption to appeal to the religious population and emphasize ‘rehabilitation’ to those who either know someone who has problems or themselves have problems. These two cover about everyone in the world – a good place to start if you need to market your man.

Says his agent.. “We want to be part of the redemption, rehabilitation… And he [Tiger] knows that. He's comfortable with it. And he's going to do that."

Step 4: Exploit the element of transformation: change everything about Tiger so he’s not the same man who did the bad things – he’s been to therapy, he’s changed his swing, his personal life has radically changed with his divorce, he’s now friendly and open, he tweets, he has a new kid-coach his own age, he smiles – he even dresses differently giving him a new, trendy, more ‘in’ look. With this make-up team, Shaq O’Neal could be an undercover cop.

    Still the logic is forcing -- The general public was against the old Tiger, but here is the new Tiger. The ironic part is that, in the midst of all this newness, Tiger has to find a way to play like the old Tiger --- and this of course is the hair pin turn on the road back from perdition.