Tiger's PR Problems Began with Phony Image

Unlike everyone else in the western world, I find the scandal surrounding Tiger Woods spectacularly uninteresting. Once you get past the fact that there are women who are prepared to have sex with golfers (!) it seems like a pretty banal, clichéd tale of tawdry sex.

But it does provide a helpful illustration of one of the classic misconceptions about public relations: that good PR involves making a company, brand, or--in this case--personality look better than it really is.

In truth, that's the probably the worst kind of PR you can have, because when the public discovers the gap between perception and reality is eventually discovered, as it inevitably will be--just ask Woods--the public backlash will be swift and furious.

In other words, Tiger's PR problems didn't begin with the discovery of his extramarital affairs; it began with the manufacture of an image that bore no resemblance to reality. That's a lesson for companies that see PR as a tool to exaggerate their records on environmental or social responsibility.