Some Last Thoughts on Lebron
I know that everyone’s reaching the point of over-saturation when it comes to Lebron’s decision to head to Miami to team up with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, but I wanted to get my two cents in before everything dies down. I believe the way he handled his decision, along with the subsequent fallout, drives home an important point about brands in a new era that allows you to connect with your fans through a countless number of avenues. At VaynerMedia, we spend a lot of time espousing the benefits of building relationships with your consumers and interacting with them as much as possible. The idea is that building strong relationships with the people who support you is an incredibly powerful way to grow a business.
Unfortunately, relationships between brands and consumers don’t abide by some revolutionary new rules, it’s the same process as your first year in high school when you were getting to know all the new people in your class. If you misrepresent yourself and aren’t authentic to the people around you, they’re going to quickly realize it and you’ll be stuck eating lunch by yourself. What Lebron James did, in a vacuum, isn’t horrible. As a 25 year old, he chose to go to Miami to play basketball with two of his best friends, who also happen to be two of the best players in the world. When you start bringing context into the equation, however, the backlash makes complete sense.
This is someone who brands himself as “King James”, someone who redefined spectator to “witness”, whose last game in a Cleveland uniform ended just about as poorly as possible. People aren’t angry that Lebron James went to Miami, they’re angry that he misrepresented himself. There’s a feeling of betrayal, not just from Cleveland fans but from fans of the NBA in general. Throughout his career, and especially for the past couple of weeks up until about 9:30 pm EST on Thursday, Lebron James had presented a version of himself to people that turned out to be untrue. Creating a Twitter account is great, allowing fans to submit questions through it to be answered on an on-air special is fantastic, but if the basic foundation of your relationship is flawed then it’s all for naught.
Despite all of this, if Lebron had utilized all the avenues of communication he had established to explain his thought process in a genuine way, he’d have salvaged much of the goodwill he had accumulated over the past seven years. Instead, his cable special came off extremely cold and he’s since done little to make amends to the people he’s offended. His Twitter account merely links to a clip from the special on his personal website and states, “If u live your Life on other people watch, u will always miss the moment that’s put right in front of u!” People are incredibly willing to forgive, but if you don’t give them the chance they’re certainly willing to hold a grudge as well.
Once the shine wears off of social media and it takes its place as an established piece of every business’ strategy, brands are going to have to come to terms with the fact that with unprecedented transparency comes an incredible responsibility to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. People expect the businesses they frequent to operate with the same responsibility and authenticity as their friends, otherwise there’s no incentive to invest the time to build a relationship. The culture of brands is shifting and unfortunately for Lebron, the team advising him was stuck in 1995.
Author: Marcus Krzastek
