USC quarterback Matt Barkley lost this week. Now, if you’re a college football fan, you might be a bit confused right now.

Didn’t Barkey tie a school record over the weekend by throwing 6-touchdowns en route to a win over Syracuse? Yes. Barkley continues to impress on the football field, but on a tennis court… not so much.

Off the field, on the court

As part of USC’s YouTube marketing/public relations campaign, the school posted a video last week of Barkley and his center, Khaled Holmes, playing doubles tennis with a pair of USC tennis players. FYI… USC has won the last four NCAA Championships in tennis. In other words, the Trojan tennis team is pretty good.

Anyway, while Barkley might be the frontrunner for this year’s Heisman Trophy, he’s not going to be taking center court at Wimbledon anytime soon. The video proves it. It’s fun, self-deprecating and gives you some insight into his personality off the field.

Your company can do this too

Why should you care? Look at this from another perspective. Think of USC as your company and Barkley as the CEO… or the maybe the top sales guy… or the chosen “face” of the company. How great would it be to humble that person a bit by forcing them to do something outside their comfort zone?

How about a video series where that person takes on different jobs around the company? What a great way to humanize the company and show customers/prospects your willingness to have a little fun.

Barkley’s willing to do it. Who’s willing on your team?

–Tony Gnau

This entry was posted by Tony Gnau and is filed under Public Relations/Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.