SociableSport

There's nothing like a contemporary advertising campaign. Do you think this example from Gatorade - recently divorced from Woods - has the flexibility to still good a good job for the brand despite Tiger's recent 'image change'? Probably not. Unfortunately, thinking about whether Tiger has "it" has taken on a whole new meaning: mental toughness not being one of them.

Celebrity news site TMZ (cited in the Indian Times) are adamant Woods' transgressions will "harm" his image - most notably as the face of Nike Golf - and suggest Woods' number could be up on other sponsorship deals in addition to the loss of Gatorade. His associative properties have certainly shifted and the Indian Times goes on to reference the Davie Brown Index, which measures celebrities' standing with consumers, where Woods has gone from 6th highest ranking celebrity endorser to 24th. Apparently the database comprises of 2,800 respondents but how often this survey goes out and how much it changes according to who's in the press and why, I'm not sure. 

But cast your minds back to 2004 and the David Beckham scandal. An Evening Standard poll asked London readers, 'Who is to blame for David Beckham's affair?' A staggering 41% blamed Victoria Beckham, 37% blamed David Beckham and only 22% blamed Rebecca Loos herself. Even David Beckham's own mother suggested Victoria was "partly to blame".

The situations are different: while Loos hogged most of the limelight as the 'mistress of choice', Tiger has multiple skeletons to remove from his closet. Yet, after a while, Beckham's image was restored as he and his family went about 'business as usual' and sponsors were un-phased.

When Kate Moss was photographed taking Class A drug Cocaine, associations with Calvin Klein, Rimmel, Chanel and Christian Dior were swiftly put under scrutiny by the press, but store chain H&M were the only brand to take immediate action to separate themselves from the troubled model but after no more than 3 months, Moss actually gained a new $1m+ deal with Virgin Mobile.

Far from being destroyed, these two personalities had their image shaken up - and soon all was forgotten as "in the past". 

According to US-based market research unit Nielsen, advertising featuring Woods hasn't appeared in US prime-time TV since November 29th, but perhaps Woods will go through a similar transformation to Beckham and Moss? Perhaps what he needs is a bit of calm: a period of time signifying the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one. Next, a new appearance, a new deal or a new campaign to differentiate the old personality from the reformed. So long as his performance on the golf course is unaffected he will always be a beacon for advertisers because that's the constant - the unchanging champion.

At least the PGA Tour sponsors are benefiting from even more attention to their number 1 star - imagine how many people will tune in to watch his next tournament... . Even now he is delivering more awareness than ever (although not for the best of reasons - but that's not my point!).

For more on Tiger Woods and Gatorade check out the announcement on BBC News.

Edit after live: Today (Thursday December 10th), bookmakers Paddy Power have offered Tiger Woods $1m to get behind their new betting property, 'Tiger's Birdies'. The 12month deal would include an undisclosed profit share arrangement. The bet offers 500-1 odds for anyone who can correctly predict the number of Birdies Woods scores across the first four days of a tournament.

Yes - Tiger isn't going to accept the offer but at least Paddy Power have got some free exposure in the press on the back of a clever piece of product development!

Another beautiful quote from Jerry Maguire:

I am out here for YOU.... You don't know what it's like being ME out here for YOU!

It is an up-at-dawn, pride-swallowing SIEGE that I will NEVER fully tell you about, ok?!

Calgon 2-in-1
"Half Protection Is Like No Protection!"

It's been a late night - I'm recovering from the dreaded 'Swine Flu' (also known as the H1N1 virus) and so I feel I can be forgiven for watching some pretty average television. Pretty average television hosts some pretty average advertising, few more so than the Calgon 2-in-1 commercials.

Unfortunately I can't actually show you the clip itself because it isn't on youtube, but please bear with me while I outline the plot.

The ad opens with a woman struggling with her washing machine. A man appears - wearing overalls - and offers to help. She explains the situation and, conveniently for the viewer, he is able to diagnose the problem instantaneously. It is a build-up of limescale caused by, frankly, some downright heinous washing machine protector that's only offering 'half protection'.

Half protection! Can you believe that? I nearly vomited I found it so disgusting.

The woman looks quizical. She's obviously mortally embarrassed about not protecting her washing machine properly and her wild eyes tell us that she will stop at nothing to find a solution but the man is intent, to the point of sadism, on hammering the point home. Just in front of the woman he notices a small child putting on a bike helmet.

"You wouldn't let him go out with half a helmet on would you?"
"No!" she replies. To be honest, the jury is out on whether she even recognises the child given she hasn't acknowledged his presence in the room so far, nor has she comforted him on the fact there is a very strange man in the kitchen. If the child were to spontaneously combust, there is no indication that she will be wise to his plight. Her entire focus is on this plumber-come-salesman.
"Well, half protection is like no protection! That's why you need Calgon 2-in-1!"
"Oh!"

She is sold. The pieces of the jigsaw have fallen nicely into place. Her looking after her washing machine with 'full protection' (what does that even mean? Does Calgon come with a small army of soldiers to protect her washing machine from gunfire? What about a fire brigade to protect it from flames? Or a moat to protect it from Tudors? Now that's full protection!) is the emotional equivalent to ensuring her son wears a helmet when he rides his bike. Because millions of washing machines die every year from limescale damage and... and damn it the unnecessary pain just has to stop!

So there we have it - advertising doing what it does best:

Stereotyping
Well, it wouldn't be a man in the kitchen would it? A man would never listen to another man anyway... he'd just ask 'is it cheaper?' then depending on the answer either opt for 'ok cool - you can leave now' or 'seriously, get the hell out of my kitchen'. Haha, men are so predictable aren't they? And women! Always looking after the house like good women should! 1950s Chevrolet anyone?

Blackmail
We owe it to ourselves and to our children to buy products because the people selling them to us say we need them and who am I to disagree? It's not like my opinion on what I need counts for anything

Insulting Intelligence - "Half protection is like no protection!"
Hold on a minute...  is half protection not the same as 50% protection? Is that not a great deal more than no protection at all?
Now, half a helmet is a different matter. Wearing half a helmet would probably be just as useless as wearing no helmet at all. That's because half a helmet isn't a helmet, it's just a bit of useless fiberglass cushion. In the context of protecting a washing machine, just as in the context of cleaning socks, half is better than nothing and realistically these machines should count themselves lucky that they get even that

Like many of us, I felt compelled to blog after watching Sacha Baron Cohen's new film, Brüno, but found myself with something of a writer's block - either from shock or some form of mental anguish; I'm not entirely sure. Bruno was, undoubtedly, shocking but also funny insomuch as it made me chuckle among all the winces, groans and tooth-clenching. Why is this? Why is Bruno funny? It reminded me of a definition I read a few months ago on www.urbandictionary.com, for the acronym "lol".

As internet folk(sters), you will more than likely be familiar with "lol", which translates instantly either as 'laughing out loud' or 'lots of love' (usually the former). It's a pretty popular thing to add into sentences, especially among those under the age of 22 (who grew up from the age of 13 with mobile phones and by the age of 15 had good access - in the UK at least - to the internet... MSN Instant Messenger, AOL Messenger, chat rooms etc. simply because it's a short-fire way of adding some personality to otherwise pretty mundane conversation. "lol" isn't something you can say at a water-cooler at work, nor is it something you can really use when chatting up a hot girl (or guy) at a party. In fact, it is used so much in so many different (impersonal) situations that some argue it has lost and relevance, credibility or impact. Perhaps this was always on the cards, that instead of writing 'man, you've made me laugh so much I actually laughed out loud just then' we just say 'lol' instead, sometimes without actually finding something funny at all. And this is where it gets interesting.

Urbandictionary is, in my humble opinion, the richest source of amusing content anywhere on the internet and this instance was no exception. Many thanks go to urbandictionary user no_one_2000 for inspiring this post. Here are some of the definitions - uses of the acronym 'lol' in context - they submitted to the dictionary:

Statement: Sorry if I'm not too cheery, my best friend just died yesterday.
Worthless Reply: lol

Statement: The golden ratio is truly an interesting aspect of not only mathematics, but art as well.
Worthless Reply: lol

A worthless reply to a comment is one thing, but 'lol' is such a prolific statement of comedic value that it can completely change our perception of a sentence, and this is where the 'lol' Test is born. Take a look at the sentences below and ask yourself 'why do I think he finds that funny?' the answer will tell you more about yourself than it does about me, because I don't actually find any of the below funny and I can assure you I'm not laughing out loud while writing them. Even so, here they are:

1. Barack Obama has been elected the first black President of the United States of America lol
2. Swine Flu is expected to claim 65,000 people this winter lol
3. I got fired from my job today and now I have to live on the street lol
4. My son just told me he's homosexual lol

Sometimes it's important to ask ourselves why we find something funny. Lots of people claim Brüno made them laugh but I don't think many people could tell you why. I struggle to put it into words myself. But by simply adding 'lol' to the otherwise completely unfunny sentences above asks us to think creatively about what possible comic value there is, and you may even find some, depending on your sense of humour. Perhaps that's why we call it a 'sense' of humour; that how funny we find something depends how our own perception - how hard we're willing to look, or what we're naturally quite adroit at noticing - and experience either of culture, society (another over-used word) or upbringing generally. Bruno isn't for everyone, but perhaps that's what's funny about it, just like it's quite funny that adding 'lol' to the above sentences completely changes how they are read... it's ridiculous really. Then again, ridiculous things are often funny, no?

What's this got to do with sport, media and the future of communications? I could try to fit it in, but alas I have run out of time lol.

I can't believe I didn't include these in the earlier editions! The following illustrates quite brilliantly how a little touch of graffiti can have your advertising remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Murphy's Law - remember? 

If you can imagine it, someone somewhere will do it. All you can do is sit back and smile...

                     

Click here to download:

Dangers_of_Outdoor_Advertising.zip (264 KB)

Some fun (like his hair) and some serious (like his expression), Schopenhauer's 'ways to win an argument' are a must read for any budding politician... or any professional for that matter!

Please take this with a pinch of salt - remember that the key to winning an argument is to avoid arguing altogether. No, I'm not suggesting you admit defeat before you start, but having an open discussion is more conducive to arriving at a positive end than attempting to make your opponent angry (no.8) and causing him/her to exaggerate beyond reasonable belief (no.23), which probably say more about your position than his/hers.

Suffice to say, I don't think Schopenhauer received many invites for dinner. If he did, no one asked him what he thought of the soup.

38 Ways To Win An Argument
by Arthur Schopenhauer

1 Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.
The more general your opponent’s statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it.
The more restricted and narrow your own propositions remain, the easier they are to defend.

2 Use different meanings of your opponent’s words to refute his argument.
Example: Person A says, “You do not understand the mysteries of Kant’s philosophy.”
Person B replies, “Oh, if it’s mysteries you’re talking about, I’ll have nothing to do with them.”

3 Ignore your opponent’s proposition, which was intended to refer to some particular thing.
Rather, understand it in some quite different sense, and then refute it.
Attack something different than what was asserted.

4 Hide your conclusion from your opponent until the end.
Mingle your premises here and there in your talk.
Get your opponent to agree to them in no definite order.
By this circuitous route you conceal your goal until you have reached all the admissions necessary to reach your goal.

5 Use your opponent’s beliefs against him.
If your opponent refuses to accept your premises, use his own premises to your advantage.
Example, if the opponent is a member of an organization or a religious sect to which you do not belong, you may employ the declared opinions of this group against the opponent.

6 Confuse the issue by changing your opponent’s words or what he or she seeks to prove.
Example: Call something by a different name: “good repute” instead of “honor,” “virtue” instead of “virginity,” “red-blooded” instead of “vertebrates”.

7 State your proposition and show the truth of it by asking the opponent many questions.
By asking many wide-reaching questions at once, you may hide what you want to get admitted.
Then you quickly propound the argument resulting from the proponent’s admissions.

8 Make your opponent angry.
An angry person is less capable of using judgment or perceiving where his or her advantage lies.

9 Use your opponent’s answers to your question to reach different or even opposite conclusions.

10 If your opponent answers all your questions negatively and refuses to grant you any points, ask him or her to concede the opposite of your premises.
This may confuse the opponent as to which point you actually seek him to concede.

11 If the opponent grants you the truth of some of your premises, refrain from asking him or her to agree to your conclusion.
Later, introduce your conclusions as a settled and admitted fact.
Your opponent and others in attendance may come to believe that your conclusion was admitted.

12 If the argument turns upon general ideas with no particular names, you must use language or a metaphor that is favorable to your proposition.
Example: What an impartial person would call “public worship” or a “system of religion” is described by an adherent as “piety” or “godliness” and by an opponent as “bigotry” or “superstition.”
In other words, insert what you intend to prove into the definition of the idea.

13 To make your opponent accept a proposition, you must give him an opposite, counter-proposition as well.
If the contrast is glaring, the opponent will accept your proposition to avoid being paradoxical.
Example: If you want him to admit that a boy must to everything that his father tells him to do, ask him, “whether in all things we must obey or disobey our parents.”
Or , if a thing is said to occur “often” you are to understand few or many times, the opponent will say “many.”
It is as though you were to put gray next to black and call it white; or gray next to white and call it black.

14 Try to bluff your opponent.
If he or she has answered several of your question without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow.
If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.

15 If you wish to advance a proposition that is difficult to prove, put it aside for the moment.
Instead, submit for your opponent’s acceptance or rejection some true proposition, as though you wished to draw your proof from it.
Should the opponent reject it because he suspects a trick, you can obtain your triumph by showing how absurd the opponent is to reject an obviously true proposition.
Should the opponent accept it, you now have reason on your side for the moment.
You can either try to prove your original proposition, as in #14, maintain that your original proposition is proved by what your opponent accepted.
For this an extreme degree of impudence is required, but experience shows cases of it succeeding.

16 When your opponent puts forth a proposition, find it inconsistent with his or her other statements, beliefs, actions or lack of action.
Example: Should your opponent defend suicide, you may at once exclaim, “Why don’t you hang yourself?”
Should the opponent maintain that his city is an unpleasant place to live, you may say, “Why don’t you leave on the first plane?”

17 If your opponent presses you with a counter-proof, you will often be able to save yourself by advancing some subtle distinction.
Try to find a second meaning or an ambiguous sense for your opponent’s idea.

18 If your opponent has taken up a line of argument that will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion.
Interrupt the dispute, break it off altogether, or lead the opponent to a different subject.

19 Should your opponent expressly challenge you to produce any objection to some definite point in his argument, and you have nothing to say, try to make the argument less specific.
Example: If you are asked why a particular hypothesis cannot be accepted, you may speak of the fallibility of human knowledge, and give various illustrations of it.

20 If your opponent has admitted to all or most of your premises, do not ask him or her directly to accept your conclusion.
Rather, draw the conclusion yourself as if it too had been admitted.

21 When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character.
But it is better to meet the opponent with a counter-argument that is just as superficial, and so dispose of him.
For it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth.
Example: If the opponent appeals to prejudice, emotion or attacks you personally, return the attack in the same manner.

22 If your opponent asks you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it begs the question.

23 Contradiction and contention irritate a person into exaggerating their statements.
By contradicting your opponent you may drive him into extending the statement beyond its natural limit.
When you then contradict the exaggerated form of it, you look as though you had refuted the original statement.
Contrarily, if your opponent tries to extend your own statement further than your intended, redefine your statement’s limits and say, “That is what I said, no more.”

24 State a false syllogism.
Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from the proposition other propositions that are not intended and that appear absurd.
It then appears that opponent’s proposition gave rise to these inconsistencies, and so appears to be indirectly refuted.

25 If your opponent is making a generalization, find an instance to the contrary.
Only one valid contradiction is needed to overthrow the opponent’s proposition.
Example: “All ruminants are horned,” is a generalization that may be upset by the single instance of the camel.

26 A brilliant move is to turn the tables and use your opponent’s arguments against himself.
Example: Your opponent declares: “so and so is a child, you must make an allowance for him.”
You retort, “Just because he is a child, I must correct him; otherwise he will persist in his bad habits.”

27 Should your opponent surprise you by becoming particularly angry at an argument, you must urge it with all the more zeal.
No only will this make your opponent angry, but it will appear that you have put your finger on the weak side of his case, and your opponent is more open to attack on this point than you expected.

28 When the audience consists of individuals (or a person) who is not an expert on a subject, you make an invalid objection to your opponent who seems to be defeated in the eyes of the audience.
This strategy is particularly effective if your objection makes your opponent look ridiculous or if the audience laughs.
If your opponent must make a long, winded and complicated explanation to correct you, the audience will not be disposed to listen to him.

29 If you find that you are being beaten, you can create a diversion--that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute.
This may be done without presumption if the diversion has some general bearing on the matter.

30 Make an appeal to authority rather than reason.
If your opponent respects an authority or an expert, quote that authority to further your case.
If needed, quote what the authority said in some other sense or circumstance.
Authorities that your opponent fails to understand are those which he generally admires the most.
You may also, should it be necessary, not only twist your authorities, but actually falsify them, or quote something that you have entirely invented yourself.

31 If you know that you have no reply to the arguments that your opponent advances, you by a fine stroke of irony declare yourself to be an incompetent judge.
Example: “What you say passes my poor powers of comprehension; it may well be all very true, but I can’t understand it, and I refrain from any expression of opinion on it.”
In this way you insinuate to the audience, with whom you are in good repute, that what your opponent says is nonsense.
This technique may be used only when you are quite sure that the audience thinks much better of you than your opponent.

32 A quick way of getting rid of an opponent’s assertion, or of throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.
Example: You can say, “That is fascism” or “Atheism” or “Superstition.”
In making an objection of this kind you take for granted
1)That the assertion or question is identical with, or at least contained in, the category cited;
and
2)The system referred to has been entirely refuted by the current audience.

33 You admit your opponent’s premises but deny the conclusion.
Example: “That’s all very well in theory, but it won’t work in practice.”

34 When you state a question or an argument, and your opponent gives you no direct answer, or evades it with a counter question, or tries to change the subject, it is sure sign you have touched a weak spot, sometimes without intending to do so.
You have, as it were, reduced your opponent to silence.
You must, therefore, urge the point all the more, and not let your opponent evade it, even when you do not know where the weakness that you have hit upon really lies.

35 Instead of working on an opponent’s intellect or the rigor of his arguments, work on his motive.
If you success in making your opponent’s opinion, should it prove true, seem distinctly prejudicial to his own interest, he will drop it immediately.
Example: A clergyman is defending some philosophical dogma.
You show him that his proposition contradicts a fundamental doctrine of his church.
He will abandon the argument.

36 You may also puzzle and bewilder your opponent by mere bombast.
If your opponent is weak or does not wish to appear as if he has no idea what your are talking about, you can easily impose upon him some argument that sounds very deep or learned, or that sounds indisputable.

37 Should your opponent be in the right but, luckily for you, choose a faulty proof, you can easily refute it and then claim that you have refuted the whole position.
This is the way in which bad advocates lose good cases.
If no accurate proof occurs to your opponent, you have won the day.

38 Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand.
In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character.
This is a very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect.