But times changed.

Nike’s original young demographic grew up and had its own kids. Spokesman Michael Jordan retired… twice. Competing brands gained influence. Technology turned the world inside out, and the public began consuming information a la carte instead of off the menu of mainstream television networks and newspapers.

Instead of being a lumpy, amorphous, loosely-defined mass of humanity, the public became a collection of niches. This may be a welcome development if you sell horse magazines or pirate-themed paper plates, but for Nike this changing reality is a big challenge. To reach customers Nike must exploit every channel from Twitter and Facebook to Youtube and traditional television, and it must do it in a way that resonates with the various sensibilities of different niches of people.

That’s hard to do.

Instead of courting famous athletes like Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong (look how well that turned out), Nike should exploit the new niche reality by going directly to its source: customers. The future of Nike’s brand shouldn’t focus on how far someone can jump from the free throw line, but on health, competition and style—the core interests of its dynamic target demographic.

Or it should go back to selling the original Air Jordans. Those are timeless.

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1. Make it public — but not too public: Whoever told Arnold Schwarzenegger that appearing on every interview show ever to talk about his affairs and his out-of-wedlock child while simultaneously hawking his new book was very wrong.

2. Be humble. Seriously: Jonah Lehrer didn’t get the message that being a public intellectual does not allow you to avoid taking the blame for your own failings by over-intellectualizing the whole thing and pontificating about the why and the how. “I need rules because I don’t trust myself to not be arrogant”? Come on, man.

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By selling lingerie to the “tween” demographic, Victoria’s Secret has broken all sorts of unspoken public relations rules, most importantly “don’t piss off parents”. (We had a feeling this wasn’t going to go over well.) Brands attempting to court the tween demographic should remember one fact: these girls are too young to legally hold jobs, so their primary source of income (and purchasing decisions) is their parents.

Apparently Victoria’s Secret forgot this, didn’t think parents were paying attention, or honestly didn’t believe there was anything inappropriate about a tween girl and her divorced father’s new girlfriend going shopping together for something hot and spicy at the local VS.

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We all fall down, and most of us get back up again. It makes us better, more compassionate people. (This is why our Dad made us play soccer even though we had asthma.)

OK, so what’s up with the new Tiger Woods and Nike ad celebrating the golf legend’s recent return to “top dog” status in his sport? It shows Tiger measuring up a putt with the tagline “Winning Takes Care of Everything” over a Nike Swoosh and the word “Victory”. Is that the lesson Tiger learned from his sex-addicted meltdown and subsequent costly — on every level — divorce? Is that what Nike learned from former sponsor and fraud Lance Armstrong?

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Today brings news that Italy’s top court has ordered a retrial for Knox, who was acquitted and freed after serving nearly four years in prison for the murder of her roommate in Italy (but you already knew that). Our point? This new twist is just icing on the cake for a story that will continue attract millions of eyes around the world.

We’re not too familiar with the details of this case, but we know that Knox is media gold: last month Diane Sawyer scored her first official promo interview and even that announcement was big news. It’s set to air on April 30, the same day the memoir hits shelves — and everyone will be covering it, because the public loves both train wrecks and apology tours (unless they involve Lance Armstrong).

The question: if you have a client like Knox, how do you play off her notoriety while insisting that she was innocent all along?

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When news hit that the Burger King Twitter account had been hacked, PR professionals across the globe cringed. The amount of damage inflicted on a brand via a hijacked social media platform can be immeasurable.

When hijacked, the brand is at the mercy of whoever is in control of the account and information. If the hackers decide to bring the crazy, the brand had better prepare for a long and bumpy public relations response campaign. The mere perception of not being able to secure one’s own Twitter account raises a host of questions regarding basic competencies and safeguards.

Though the breach in cyber security raises some serious concerns for Burger King, the brand didn’t just dodge a bullet on this one–it received a significant social media boost.

It’s simple, really: unlike the BET/MTV fake hacking stunt, this little incident inspired a lot of people to follow Burger King, which means the audience for its next Twitter campaign will be that much bigger. Better get ready to bring your A game, BK.

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We also find it a little strange to note that Nike still has a very cozy relationship with its biggest spokesman, Michael Jordan, who not only admitted to being a serial adulterer but supposedly taught Tiger how to follow in his footsteps. (Both Tiger and Kobe Bryant, another famous cheater and homophobe, have new Nike campaigns on the way. Tiger’s is titled “apologies.”)

Here’s what we take from this development:

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We’ve heard a good bit about EPO and other performance-enhancing drugs in the past few months thanks in large part to athletes like Lance Armstrong and Oscar Pistorious, the Olympian double-amputee and accused murderer who apparently liked to mix his alcohol with illegal steroids. Lest we forget, these drugs primarily serve as useful medicines that can help lengthen and improve the lives of those affected by chronic conditions like anemia.

In a determined PR move, Roche and GlaxoSmithKline–two of the world’s largest drug makers–have joined the World Anti-Doping Agency in an attempt to prevent the abuse of their products and protect their names from the inevitable backlash.

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In short, Lehrer was a promising essayist/journalist/public speaker whose career crumbled after a few investigative writers discovered that he had not only copied and re-printed sections of his own work (which were published by different companies, thereby violating copyright laws) but also copied from other blogs and completely invented elements like quotes from Bob Dylan.

Now for the lesson in crisis comm: Lehrer’s first response to the controversy was denial. He eventually admitted to plagiarizing himself and inventing the Dylan quotes and lost his various media gigs, effectively killing his credibility. Today brings news of the first step in his rehabilitation campaign: he was hired to speak on his own misdeeds at a Knight Foundation journalism conference in Miami.

The journalists on Twitter aren’t having any of it, though.

Lehrer talks about need for rules and making them public. Well, the FIRST rule in journalism is this: don’t make shit up. #infoneeds

— Rob Blackwell (@ABWashBureau) February 12, 2013

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After reports surfaced of a top supplier selling beef products packed with pony flesh, Burger King quickly dropped the suspect firm while simultaneously issuing ‘absolute assurances’ (aka denials) that any of its trademark Whoppers could be tainted by even the tiniest bits of the mares in question.

After performing DNA tests of samples taken from a single production plant, the company released a statement confirming that they showed “the presence of very small trace levels of equine DNA”. Now other top meat-oriented companies are taking pains to distance themselves from Silvercrest, an Irish distributor which for some time apparently included “meat off-cuts, including horse…imported in large frozen blocks from Poland” in its shipments to big UK brands like BK and the supermarket Tesco.

Now come charges of a deep-reaching cover up as Burger King races to preserve business as usual at its 500 UK locations. A spokesperson for a British food safety advocacy group called the company’s response “very shabby”, noting that “It really is not the open, honest and transparent way that we expect a major food company to treat its customers.”

Come on, guys. Didn’t Lance Armstrong teach us that vigorous denials only make the guilty look worse in retrospect?

And now for the requisite grossout joke: Next time we’re in London we’ll make sure not to order the “foal and chips.” Ugh…

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The issue at hand isn’t the fact that Lance cheated, ruined honest people with fake libel charges, or promoted a bunch of big brands after winning while on dope. No, it’s all about his books, see?

The two plaintiffs in the class-action complaint say that they bought Lance’s inspirational memoirs because they believed his story about a triumphant, dope-and-cancer-free return to the Tour de France. Upon discovering that the story was not exactly true, they felt “duped, cheated and betrayed” and decided to take his sorry ass to court for fraud. The suit accuses Lance and his publishers, Penguin and Random House, of committing acts of “false advertising” by selling the books as works of non-fiction.

Excuse us while we enjoy a guilt-free laugh.

The most interesting part of this story (to us) is the fact that one of the men filing the suit is “Rob Stutzman, a public relations executive who served as a deputy chief of staff for former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger“. He would certainly know a good bit about famous liars, wouldn’t he?

So will this suit go nowhere like the one against Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson, who fabricated portions of his books? Or will it lead to a settlement like the case filed against admitted fabulist James Frey? And what do we think about the fact that a veteran PR professional started it?

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First, people were actually growing more sympathetic toward Lance before Oprah indulged him:

• Last October, 49% of Americans thought he should have to forfeit all his Tour de France medals.
• That number had dropped to 37% a couple of weeks ago.

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Anyway, we know everyone and his brother will be posting reasoned op-eds today to debate Armstrong’s PR strategy and his chances at redemption, so we thought we’d take a different route:

Which questions were resolved in last night’s interview? And what were the answers? Let’s start with the most obvious:

• What is Lance Armstrong’s favorite reality show? Cheaters, duh.
• Who’s the bigger bully: Lance Armstrong or Nelson Muntz? Let’s see…Did Nelson ever sue anyone for libel? Didn’t think so.

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Even as Armstrong confessed to what pretty much everyone suspected, he also seems to have hedged a bit, using the “everybody was doing it” defense to argue that he was not, in fact, a doping “ringleader”. Given his extremely aggressive PR efforts in denying all relevant accusations for years, we’re not quite sure anyone will buy that line–but he clearly made a strategic decision in the interest of saving what’s left of his multimillion dollar reputation. By testifying against others involved in the scandal, he hopes to overcome his lifelong ban from competitive sports so he can continue to compete in “triathalons and running events” while raising money for his charity.

This is obviously a big story, and some within the industry see it as a major PR win for Oprah, whose influence has been slipping of late as her OWN Network struggles to gain viewers and seeks media attention via moves like a partnership with The Huffington Post. Oprah clearly aims to make the most of the interview–she’s splitting it into two parts, and directly after its conclusion she tweeted:

Just wrapped with @lancearmstrongMore than 2 1/2 hours . He came READY!

— Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) January 14, 2013

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This week brought whispers of a major media appearance, and now we can confirm that Armstrong will break his silence to Oprah Winfrey on a special episode of Oprah’s Next Chapter set to air on Thursday, January 17 at 9 PM.

A press release from the network calls the event a 90-minute “no holds barred” discussion to be held at Armstrong’s home in Austin. Various media outlets used the release as an opportunity to wonder whether Lance will follow Marion Jones and shed tears of regret for the public.

One of our new year’s resolutions was to seek more reader input, so in the interest of creating a conversation we’ve written a quick poll. PR pros and others: What should Lance Armstrong do next week? continued…

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