Are you having a bad hair day?
Posted by Adam at 7:17 pm 0 Comments
The news came out recently that Andre Agassi, the long-maned tennis player from the 90s, wore a wig. Yes, the guy who was known as much for his hair as his tennis ability, was actually a fake. (read more about that here)
Remember the commercials Agassi used to do for Canon cameras? “Image is everything”. That same motto has to be what motivates all those other hairless guys out there who insist on wearing a toupe. They act as if it’s real, but everyone else knows it isn’t. It’s Artificial DNA, and those guys are spending most of their emotional energy trying to sell it as truth. Then there is the guy we all know with the comb-over. Yes, it’s his actual DNA- but the alignment is all wrong. Again, it’s obvious to everyone but him that it isn’t working. Lastly, consider the mullet. We all still see guys wearing these. Yes, it was cool in the 80s and 90s… but that was 20-30 years ago. Times have changed. Even Billy Ray Cyrus figured that out- and successfully reinvented himself.
It is easy for us to see these misalignments when it comes to a person’s hair (or lack of it), but can we see it when it comes to our organization’s marketing? Are we trying to make a “wig” look natural? Are we trying to cover up the “bald spots” in a unnatural way? Are we holding on to a style in 2010 just because it worked for us 30 years ago?
So how do we avoid a marketing “bad hair day”? It’s simple- just be real. “If it ain’t growing, don’t try to keep it flowing”. Don’t try to be something you are not- Go with who you are, and put all your energy into making a better product or providing a better service. And then regularly ask others outside of your organization to evaluate your ”hairstyle”.
What about Agassi? What did he ultimately do? ESPN writer Rick Reilly sums it up this way…
“He shaved his hair off. He started being real. He learned to love tennis, and tennis learned to love him….. Why is Agassi (now) so scorchingly honest? Maybe because he once lived enough lies for five men. Or maybe because… he’s heard the truth can set him free.”
We’d do well to take a lesson from a tennis player- and let the truth set our marketing free.