Skip to main content

Our Complicated Feelings for Lance Armstrong

Reporters can be a suspicious lot by nature. 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley and his producer certainly trained all their skepticism on Lance Armstrong during a story that aired on May 22, 2011 that lays out the ways he may have used illegal performance-enhancing drugs on his way to seven consecutive Tour de France wins. Armstrong’s lawyers have demanded an on-air apology from 60 Minutes for reporting they term as ‘untethered to reality.’

Other reporters have rushed to the defense of 60 Minutes.

However the battle of public opinion plays out Armstrong may well get his day in court. After being impaneled back in September 2010, a Los Angeles grand jury is apparently still hearing testimony on the Armstrong doping case. Armstrong’s lawyers have had pointed remarks for the Federal Investigator in the case, Jeff Novitzky, that explicitly wrap Armstrong in the cloak of an anti-cancer hero.

“We know Novitzky,” says Armstrong’s attorney John Keker, “and plan to prove that these are his repeated, illegal leaks aimed solely at destroying a true hero, not just in sports but in the fight against cancer,” he said. “That the government is spending tax money investigating long ago bike races in Europe is an outrage.”

LinkSports Illustrated reporter and columnist Michael Farber doesn’t believe Armstrong won all those Tours without doping. And as a cancer survivor himself, he doesn’t care that much. “To some, a successful government case against Armstrong would forever change the modern concept of a hero,” he writes. “I don’t see it that way. I don’t really care if the next Floyd Landis or Tyler Hamilton says he has proof Armstrong was climbing the Alps with rocket fuel steaming out of his ears, because Armstrong is transcendent.”

In other words, when Farber weighs in the balance that oft-imitated (and never duplicated) little yellow bracelet along with all the other elements that make up Livestrong, the inspirational anti-cancer charity, it’s newsworthy that Lance Armstrong probably cheated, just not pertinent to him and other cancer survivors and anti-cancer crusaders.

A lot of people are in the same boat when it comes to Armstrong. Like the Facebook category ‘it’s complicated’ describes our feelings for the man.

Farber puts it well in his Sports Illustrated column, “I may not accept Armstrong’s stonewalling in the face of all the accusations. But I accept that he helps men like Parker (the man who gave Farber a Livestrong bracelet when he received his own cancer diagnosis) pay his life forward…At the Church of Lance, we count our blessings along with our beads.”

In effect Armstrong’s deeds with Livestrong have created a kind of insurance policy that has given the man and the his charity brand a little cover.

Will it be enough should the Los Angeles Grand Jury return an indictment against Armstrong? What if Armstrong is convicted of doping?

Stay tuned.Link

Comments

greg46107 said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Popular posts from this blog

Cause Marketing: The All Packaging Edition

One way to activate a cause marketing campaign when the sponsor sells a physical product is on the packaging. I started my career in cause marketing on the charity side and I can tell you that back in the day we were thrilled to get a logo on pack of a consumer packaged good (CPG) or even just a mention. Since then, there’s been a welcome evolution of what sponsors are willing and able to do with their packaging in order to activate their cause sponsorships. That said, even today some sponsors don’t seem to have gotten the memo that when it comes to explaining your cause campaign, more really is more, even on something as small as a can or bottle. The savviest sponsors realize that their only guaranteed means of reaching actual customers with a cause marketing message is by putting it on packaging. And the reach and frequency of the media on packaging for certain high-volume CPG items is almost certainly greater than radio, print or outdoor advertising, and, in many cases, TV. More to

Why Even Absurd Cause-Related Marketing Has its Place

Buy a Bikini, Help Cure Cancer New York City (small-d) fashion designer Shoshonna Lonstein Gruss may have one of the more absurd cause-related marketing campaigns I’ve come across lately. When you buy the bikini or girls one-piece swimsuit at Bergdorf-Goodman in New York shown at the left all sales “proceeds” benefit Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center . Look past the weak ‘ proceeds ’ language, which I always decry, and think for a moment about the incongruities of the sales of swimsuits benefiting the legendary Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Cancer has nothing to do swimming or swimsuits or summering in The Hamptons for that matter. And it’s not clear from her website why Shoshanna, the comely lass who once adorned the arm of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, has chosen the esteemed cancer center to bestow her gifts, although a web search shows that she’s supported its events for years. Lesser critics would say that the ridiculousness of it all is a sign that cause-related marketing is

A Clever Cause Marketing Campaign from Snickers and Feeding America

Back in August I bought this cause-marketed Snickers bar during my fourth trip of the day to Home Depot. (Is it even possible to do home repairs and take care of all your needs with just one trip to Home Depot / Lowes ?) Here’s how it works: Snickers is donating the cost of 2.5 million meals to Feeding America, the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity. On the inside of the wrapper is a code. Text that code to 45495… or enter it at snickers.com… and Snickers will donate the cost of one meal to Feeding America, up to one million additional meals. The Feeding America website says that each dollar you donate provides seven meals. So Snickers donation might be something like $500,000. But I like that Snickers quantified its donations in terms of meals made available, rather than dollars. That’s much more concrete. It doesn’t hurt that 3.5 million is a much bigger number than $500,000. I also like the way they structured the donation. By guaranteeing 2.5 million meals, the risk of a poor