What do you do when you’re branded, and you know you’re a man.

Larry Scott is just flat out stealing money from the Pac-12.

The Pac-12 Conference has hired one of the world’s top public relations and crisis management agencies.

Its mission?

Fixing the conference’s broken brand.

The repair is necessary, but what the conference members need most to compete is additional revenue. The brand isn’t broken because of public perception. It’s busted because of results.

You’d think that unless the PR firm can help Southern Cal or Washington win more games, it’s hard to see how much good branding’s gonna do.  But, then again, you’re not a genius like Larry.  I mean, check out the plans.

The internal memo aimed at the Pac-12 CEO Group from Walker listed the recommended objectives and strategies from FleishmanHillard.

Among the recommendations:

• “Conduct in-depth analysis of the influencer landscape to identify neutral to positive voices and systematically build relationships with these influencers to shift the conversation.”
• “Expand upon media partnerships with The Players’ Tribune and Los Angeles Times and identify new national partner(s) to increase national and regional coverage.”
• “Enlist one of comedy’s great ‘coaches’ or ‘fans’ to star in a digital series that addresses the challenges of last-minute schedule and late games in a way that honors the true commitment of the Pac-12 fan.”

Solid work, there.  You can smell the playoffs.  These guys are pros.

The U.S. Mint contracted with FleishmanHillard in 2000 for $4 million to help market and brand the dollar coin. It never really caught on.

Well, pros in the sense that they get paid, anyway.

I can’t wait for Larry’s next scam.

(h/t)