Dr. Bob Deutsch

Brain Sells (www.Brain-Sells.com), Boston, MA

Tiger Woods’ problems continue to escalate as AT&T joins a rapidly growing list of marketers distancing themselves from the golf champion.  The escalating negativity generated in response to Woods’ off-fairway behavior provides a tutorial on the design of popularity.

In America, performance is our culture, celebrities our kings and queens.  So it’s instructive to look at the dynamics of mind that cause us to idolize and abruptly turn away from those we recently extolled.

The first lesson of the Tiger Woods fiasco is: TOO is never good when seeking public attention and attachment. 

Problems of Perfection

Tiger seemed too perfect.  While perfection can be awe-inspiring, a person or product becomes a leader when people see something of themselves reflected – they identify.  Unfortunately, perfection is a one-dimensional image.  Absolute.  Unknowable.  We cannot identify with perfection.

There are other problems with too perfect.  When seeking public adulation, perfection can easily be associated with the robotic, the unfeeling.

As examples, think of also-rans in Presidential campaigns: Gen. Haig, too power-hungry; Governor Dukakis, too bureaucratic; Senator Simon (who?), too intellectual.

Ronald Reagan’s perceived absent-mindedness, or occasional nap during an audience with, say, the Pope, was a forgivable flaw people could give Reagan a pass on because they identified with his folksy style and were comforted by his crooning voice.  Reagan embodied the benevolent leader who knows the way, but is as comfortable as an old shoe.

Vying for Number One

When vying for Number One, what compels peoples’ emotional attachment is a rendering of self that has demonstrates some complexity, contradiction and irony; i.e. real people.  Johnny one-notes do not endure in the public heart.

A paradoxical persona is attractive because it’s more human and because it puts the audiences’ imagination into play creating narratives of identification can offer mental elbow-room.  Think Walter Cronkite – grave but grandfatherly; Greta Garbo – chaste but seductive; Elvis – profane but sacred.  We all are both “god and buffoon.”

It is human nature, and the nature of the mind, that dictates that the design of attachment ride the cusp between two paradoxical injunctions: Be familiar and be mythic. Be appeasing and powerful.  This is true for those seeking alpha-male chimpanzee status, to be head of state or a dominant global brand.

Activating the Prefrontal Cortex

Neurological experiments demonstrate that when we identify with another – when we feel “This is part of me” – the medial prefrontal cortex is activated, a region involved with self-definition.  In this case, the person or product is felt as fitting into the picture a person has of him or herself.

Therefore, a reverie about self is provoked in which a narrative envelops the person or product.  But when someone just feels an attribute of the person or product simply is “good,” the brain region known as the putamen lights up.  This experience is rewarding, but not self-involving and the object remains external.

This helps to explain the cheering crowds along Sarah Palin’s book tour.  Even more than satisfying people’s interests, we crave the satisfaction that comes when our identities are confirmed.

We can see these attachment processes at work by listening to how people talk about one of our great brands, Apple and its iPhone.  “The iPhone, like Apple, is a CIRCLE, it’s smooth and it glides. It’s easy and makes me feel I can do things more easily and do more things.  All other phones and network providers are a BOX; they have corners and squares, are highly structured, have many rules, and are too technical and linear.  Not like me. The iPhone is fun and natural and let’s me do my own thing.  That makes me smile and my nature is to be a happy person,” said a recent consumer.

The infidelities of a too-perfect Tiger Woods have turned his smooth stroke into a jagged flailing.  His circle has been sliced into a square. 

T.W., phone home.