When a brand becomes the story

This year's Academy Awards broadcast on ABC continued a ratings slide for the live event, down 4% overall year over year and down 14% against the coveted 18-49 year old audience. And for those who didn't tune in, what an Oscars telecast to miss!

By now you know the story - Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway called the wrong name for Best Picture, mistakenly giving the award to La La Land when the correct winner was Moonlight. In the ensuring chaos, it was determined that the wrong information had been placed in the envelope delivered to Beatty and thus the ensuing gaffe that was unprecedented in Academy Award history.

A brand that is ordinarily a side note to the Oscars ceremony is now squarely in the crosshairs. PriceWaterhouseCoopers has been called out publicly as the culprit and the two PwC accountants responsible have been barred from future shows.

To their credit, PwC quickly confessed to the mistake and did their best to deflect blame from Beatty and Dunaway. It was the right move but the whole episode highlighted the risks taken by those brands that are intimately involved in the success of a live event.

Earlier in my career at Sprint, we were an integral player in the success of World Cup Soccer 1994. This global event - the largest sporting event in the world - came to the U.S. with enormous technological and telecommunications needs given the worldwide viewing audience and the massive media contingent from across the globe reporting on this month-long tournament. Our company built a network linking the nine involved U.S. host markets and media center and worked closely with the international media, ensuring that the network worked flawlessly.

Our company took a gamble and our brand was exposed. We pulled it all off with nary a major glitch and avoided our own PwC moment.

As I look back, I shudder at what might have been and think about current brands whose technology, product and/or service are a part of the game or event. These brands cannot underestimate the importance of product or technology performance and quality service if they hope to raise the profile of their brand through these partnerships and avoid their own PwC moment.

Unfortunately for PwC, their brand's role as a side note took only a moment to become the story. Rebuilding the brand after a public outing like that is a challenge no brand manager ever wishes to face.