Yesterday we talked about the major league baseball scandal related to performance-enhancing drugs. The main theme of the post is if we let things go too far, there's no spin that we can put on something to counter negative publicity.
The conclusion of former senate majority leader George Mitchell confirms this, as he said at a press conference, "Everyone involved in baseball shares responsibility. Commissioners, club officials, the Players Association and players. I can't be any clearer than that."
In any thing we're promoting and backing in our businesses, we have to be very clear and open on what we're doing and represent. The mixed messages sent by Major League Baseball, all around, brings a message of confusion from all quarters.
When I say mixed messages, I'm referring to actions, or lack of action taken. This has been a problem for years in baseball, and no one really had the guts to tackle it. It was shoved under the rug with the hope it would be forgotten or go away on its own. It didn't happen. Now with testing going on for steroids, the performance-enhancement choice is migrating to human growth hormone.
The mixed message sent by baseball is a huge mistake. I don't care what words are said, just follow the actions taken or not taken; that's really the determining factor in what an individual or organization really believes.
Baseball, like all of us, either has to be clear on what it stands for, or it'll stand for nothing.
It's something to strongly consider when we offer up our marketing campaigns. We can't attempt to fool people by trying to represent everything; it just doesn't work. Know who you are and what you really believe and represent. Marketing and branding isn't that difficult when you adhere to who you are.
In the case of baseball they've lost their direction. Now it's time for them to "step up to the plate," and let fans and the general public know who they are.
This issue has been swept under the rug for far too long, now it's come back to bite them. It'll take baseball a long time to recover from this. The first step is to define clearly who they are. They can't go on until they do.
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