Tiger should go full-steam ahead and plant his flag as “the new Hugh Hefner,” or in my shorthand (trademark pending), “The New Hugh.”

I’m serious here.

Hugh Hefner has made a bloody fortune screwing beautiful women and leading the party life. But he’s ooollllddd. I can’t believe he’s still going strong, supposedly.

Hugh ain’t gonna last forever. We need a new role model, a new Adonis to do all the things we dream about: Tiger.

He’s incredibly handsome.

He’s incredibly rich.

He’s one of the greatest athletes in the world.

He’s one of the greatest commercial pitchmen in the world.

He’s perfect.

Go for it, my man.  Stock your mega-yacht Privacy with hot-and-cold running hotties, Cristal and pate, enjoy it and cash in on it.

You have nothing left to lose.

What does stun me is all the media and sponsor handwringing and clucking that has ensued now that the stories about Tiger’s wild party life have burst into the open. Where were you, golf media, when Tiger had a bottle of Cristal in one hand and a babe on each arm? Were you partying along with him? Were you up in your rooms playing Nintendo? Or were you just flat out clueless?

And sponsors, starting with Accenture: you mean to tell me that you didn’t check out Tiger’s behavior before or while you employed him? You didn’t do any due diligence to find out if the image you were buying was real? And you want me to trust you (Accenture) with my corporate consulting work?

It seems clear to me that the media, sponsors and the PGA tour all turned a blind eye toward Tiger’s behavior, for one good ‘ol fashioned reason: money. The man has made billions for all the parties above, boosting ratings and selling soap. He was their cash cow, their golden goose. To call him on his behavior would have been commercial suicide.

I understand that too. But spare me the holier-than-thou statements now generally along the lines of “we didn’t know” or “he doesn’t represent the right image for us.” Puh-leeze. How about “we knew all along but we didn’t say anything, so we share the blame for this unfortunate situation, and we’ll do a better job next time.”

PS — And then there’s his wife, Elin Nordegren. She knew before she married Tiger that he was a major ladies man, yet she jumped on the gravy train as well. Here’s People mag, via the NY Daily News:

Nordegren’s friends tell People she knew about Woods’ extracurricular activities but that he promised before their marriage that he would change.

“Elin had talked to other golfers and their wives about Tiger’s wild parties,” a friend told the magazine. “When she asked Tiger about it, he said he would stop doing it. And she believed him. But he never did.”

When you think about it, though, it’s pretty obvious that Tiger had some learnin’ to do. He was raised to be a golf-playing robot by his parents, and by his teenage years, was playing golf at the highest levels of the sport. Before long, he was earning millions playing golf, practicing golf and dealing with sponsors. When did he have time to learn about life?

Somewhere this week, I read a quote from him, via his girlfriend, that he complained of being unhappy in his married life and that being a husband and a father “wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.” I should have saved the link, because now I can’t find it.

What Tiger has fallen victim to is known as a super-replicator — a belief that we as humans transmit among each other regardless of its factuality, because to not do so might imperil our very existence.

What was this belief? That marriage and children bring happiness to the lives of adults.

It’s not that there aren’t many aspects of marriage and parenting that are pleasurable, but the reality is that in many moments, being married or raising children isn’t as fun, as, say, having sex with a hot cocktail waitress.

But if our society didn’t pass along the “marriage and children equal happiness” super-replicator, then what would happen? Fewer marriages and children — which is why our failure to pass it along threatens our very existence.

So people coo at babies, say things like, “you must be so happy!” and generally send adults the message that, in fact, parenting = happiness. The problem with this is that in the moment that you are up to your eyeballs in diapers or dead tired from chasing the kids, you don’t understand why you aren’t as happy as everyone says you are supposed to be. And that’s where the trouble starts.

For most of us, there are safe ways to reconcile the disparity between the super-replicator and our own experience. We talk with friends, we observe other people, and we generally make it through. Of course, some people turn to booze, drugs, gambling, affairs and the like, as well.

For Tiger, though, he likely hasn’t had anyone to share his feelings with, to try to square what he was feeling with what the world was telling him. He got together with his wife in his late-twenties, she was a knockout blonde, what’s the problem? We get married, we start a family, life’s good. Only when it turns out that Elin is a real person, and that being married isn’t all romance and hot sex, and that having babies isn’t all cute photo ops, Tiger likely had no safety net.

I’m also guessing that despite his Joe-cool exterior, Tiger is a pretty immature, undeveloped guy. Which would explain why he would be comfortable with cocktail waitresses who demanded little of him and likely allowed him to “be himself.” The gorgeous blonde, Swedish wife was who Tiger thought he ought to be married to, in order to live out the super-replicator life that he thought he was supposed to live. Hanging out with cocktail waitresses was probably closer to the real life he was ready to live.

*****

Where did I get all the stuff above? Mainly from reading a great book called “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert. It’s about the reality of what does or might make us happy versus what we think will make us happy. I highly recommend it.

As it happens, I found a blogger who liberally quoted from the section of the book that deals with the concept of super-replicators. Here is the key quote:

“Children bring happiness” is a super-replicator. The belief-transmission network of which we are a part cannot operate without a continuously replenished supply of people to do the transmitting, thus the belief that children are a source of happiness becomes a part of our cultural wisdom simply because the opposite belief unravels the fabric of any society that holds it.

But is it goodbye golf game and goodbye endorsements? No and probably not.

Woods issued another statement today, this time saying he “let my family down and I regret those transgressions.” [Full text of Tiger Woods' statement here.]

But just as Tiger redefined golf, he may be in the process of redefining celebrity scandal-mongering. His statement goes on to say:

No matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy… Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn’t have to mean public confessions.

That’s right. He hasn’t been accused of using performance-enhancing drugs, betting on the game, animal cruelty or physical violence. Those are the types of things that derail sports careers.

He’s one of the world’s sexiest men, he probably had and has woman propositioning him constantly, and he took some of them up on it, even after he was married. That makes him a fool and a cad, but that’s all. No evidence yet that he paid for it, a la Eliot Spitzer, who after all was an elected official, and a sanctimonious one at that. Unless this saga goes into one of the above-mentioned areas, I think it tarnishes him but doesn’t really afffect his public life.

Further, I really like that he shot back at the media mongrels who are demanding more information and confessionals. Tough. If you want information, go dig it out. He owes you absolutely nothing.

In the meantime, on Sunday, Tiger released a statement that, I thought, hit all the right notes.

Here’s the statement:

As you all know, I had a single-car accident earlier this week, and sustained some injuries. I have some cuts, bruising and right now I’m pretty sore.

This situation is my fault, and it’s obviously embarrassing to my family and me. I’m human and I’m not perfect. I will certainly make sure this doesn’t happen again.

This is a private matter and I want to keep it that way. Although I understand there is curiosity, the many false, unfounded and malicious rumors that are currently circulating about my family and me are irresponsible.

The only person responsible for the accident is me. My wife, Elin, acted courageously when she saw I was hurt and in trouble. She was the first person to help me. Any other assertion is absolutely false.

This incident has been stressful and very difficult for Elin, our family and me. I appreciate all the concern and well wishes that we have received. But, I would also ask for some understanding that my family and I deserve some privacy no matter how intrusive some people can be.

Here’s what I like about the statement and the strategy it implies:

1. He gives some helpful details at the beginning
2. He shifts the story back to its core — a single-car accident, mostly on private property, minor injuries, my fault. He went on the offense instead of playing defense.
3. He clearly states and repeats that he wants his privacy, as would any of us, famous or not, in such a case involving a minor accident.
4. He praises his wife, signaling a united front with her.

The fact is, none of us — the general public, his fans, the police or the media — really needs more information about this situation. I think the police acted irresponsibly in showing up at his house twice for an interview, thereby giving TV a fresh shot to air, when they could have called on the phone and been told whether or not he would speak to them. It looked to me like the cops were seeing this case as a possible gravy train rather than focusing on doing their jobs.

Is Tiger having an affair? Was his wife whacking him with a golf club as he ran out of the house and jumped in his car? Who knows? If you care, go to TMZ.com and get your fill.

Here’s a blessedly sane media story with the headline “Tiger doesn’t owe us an explanation.”

This, is a nutshell, is my fan-level reaction to Ticketmaster’s new PR ploy involving its captive reseller program, TicketsNow. Ticketmaster had a big problem earlier this year when it was caught transferring ticket seekers from the original ticket onsale screen to the TicketsNow resale screen, where the same tickets that had just gone on sale were now supposedly only available for huge markups on TicketsNow.

Last week, Ticketmaster announced a so-called “Fans Up Front” program that claims to address the concerns of ticket buyers who believe that Ticketmaster holds back tickets from the original ticket distribution and then makes them available via TicketsNow at a markup. The program includes a side-by-side comparison of the original price and the scalper/TicketsNow price, and will tell prospective TicketsNow buyers whether there are still original price tickets available via Ticketmaster.

Here’s why it’s an attempt to use PR to solve an operational problem: both of these initiatives are lame-ass smokescreens. Two of the easiest pieces of information for a concertgoer to figure out are a) the list price of the ticket and b) whether Ticketmaster has any more original tickets for sale when you go online to get them.

What none of us understand is the answer to the question that Ticketmaster continues to evade: how is it that tickets are “sold out” minutes after they go on sale, only to be available for huge markups on the TicketsNow site and elsewhere, such as eBay? The answer, I and many others suspect, is that in the byzantine world of ticket sales, lots and lots of people have their hands in the proverbial cookie jar, skimming off the best tickets for themselves, for friends, for ticket brokers and for scalpers. What’s left for the average fan is the crumbs.

Until Ticketmaster addresses its operational problem — that far fewer than 100% of the available tickets are made available to the general public — then lame PR programs like “Fans Up Front” will continue to be seen for what they are: ineffective spin.

Soon after the video hit YouTube and started to make the rounds, Domino’s responded with its own video apology, and they posted apologies on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Still, online communications pundits seem to believe that the company didn’t do enough, fast enough, to combat this incident and that the video and their response had “damaged” the brand.

You know a story like this is peaking when the New York Times weighs in, and so they did, saying,

In just a few days, Domino’s reputation was damaged.

The proof of brand damage? Found online, of course:

The perception of its quality among consumers went from positive to negative since Monday, according to the research firm YouGov, which holds online surveys of about 1,000 consumers every day regarding hundreds of brands.

An online survey? Is that a joke?

Two observations: Domino’s pizza is terrible: cheese and tomato sauce on cardboard. It’s hard to imagine that their brand’s “quality” image was materially harmed by a sophomoric (obviously) online video. And how many of Domino’s core customers are tracking the brand online? I didn’t do any man-on-the-street interviews, but I doubt that the “average” Domino’s customer cares what is being said about the company online.

Even as powerful as the online world can be at times, it’s still only a tiny fraction of the real world. My advice is to keep that in mind, and in perspective.

That’s what UC San Diego did this week — except they sent the “you’re accepted” email to all 47,000 people who applied — not just the 17,000 who were accepted! Oops!

“It was one of the greatest moments in my life and then, boom, it was one of the lowest,” said Arya Shamuilian. “UCSD was my first-choice university.”

UCSD apparently recognized the mistake immediately and sent out a correction and apology. Then, the admissions office stayed in late to take angry phone calls.

One of the hallmarks of a crisis is that it becomes public and requires a public response. After all, we all face fire drills every day in our jobs. They only become crises when our problems become big and widely known.

In this case, it would seem that UCSD did a pretty good job. They quickly issued a follow-up email, they made themselves personally available, and they posted everything on the web.

This last part is the learning of the day. Since we all have access to web search, it’s crazy to hide behind false walls trying to avoid sharing information under circumstances like these. People will find the stuff anyway, and you’ll look extra bad in the process.

So I give UCSD an A for how they handled this crisis.

Maddow let her inner media whiner out and went on a classic anti-PR rant about Burson, saying that AIG shouldn’t be spending taxpayer money to spiff up its image, and simplifying (or dumbing down) a segment of Burson’s client roster to a who’s who of evil-doers (the manufacturer of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, for example) — the latest of which, by extension, is AIG.

Now my perspective is that this kind of criticism is to be expected in our industry and tolerated to some degree. We are the industry of spin, we are relatively easy to understand (and hence criticize), and we make so many gaffes that we are easy targets. But we’re not alone. How would you like to be a “trial lawyer” or a “tax collector” or a “meter maid”? See my point? They get ribbed all the time too, but you don’t see them and their industry associations crying about it.

So my question is not whether we are fair game (we are), but is AIG’s decision to hire PR help a good move or a bad one? Should AIG be spending any taxpayer money on outside PR counsel, or should it acknowledge that spending money on outside PR help is counter-productive because it generates the negative coverage that AIG is, presumably, trying to avoid?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd6gqvydzOk]

Yes, there are many times when you should go on the offensive, make yourself available to the press, and try to sway public opinion
to your cause. In fact, it’s really the heart of PR.

But when losers like the Illinois governor use these tactics, they set the whole profession back a step.

Worse yet is the gullible media that readily provide airtime to this guy, telling themselves they are being “fair” and “balanced.” Baloney! They’re being used, pure and simple.

Real PR in this situation: resign quietly. Lick your wounds in private. Emerge as a do-gooder after a respectful period of reflection.