Like iconic celebrations, memorable tantrums can stay with a brand forever. How many times has someone in your life uttered the word “practice,” only to spark another poor (but, often times hilarious) impersonation of Allen Iverson at the podium “…talking about practice”? Or how about the word “playoffs” – made infamous by former NFL head coach Jim Mora. Chances are one of those words has instantly transported you and your friends back in time to re-live the now infamous outbursts.
The sad part is that those moments go beyond the words each spoke in the moment. Not only do we go to those respective interviews when we hear those two words, unfortunately for each highly acclaimed sports figure, we subconsciously go to each of those events when we hear their names. It’s not just us; it’s the Internet as well. Search “Allen Iverson” in Google and one of the automatic responses will be “Allen Iverson Practice.” If you search “Jim Mora”? You guessed it, “Jim Mora Playoffs” shows up right off the bat. In fact, at the time of this writing, there is (no joke) a website dedicated entirely to Mora’s rant about playoffs (www.jimmoraplayoffs.com). That’s when you know your tirade made it.
Incredibly, each of these instances occurred before YouTube, before Twitter, before Facebook. Imagine if they happened today. If a picture of a crying Michael Jordan can become one of the most popular social media memes of all time, what would happen to Iverson and Mora today?
Jordan could not have predicted that his shedding of tears would ignite a social media feeding frenzy, but both Iverson and Mora were in control of their own behavior and their own words. Their brands were affected by their own decisions. Educate your student athletes on the impact their actions and words can have on their brands for the rest of their lives, and in the heat of the moment, advise them to…just take a breath.
“I Have An Idea…” is a series written for College AD by the author of Brands Win Championships, Jeremy Darlow.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.