Another US Women’s Open has come to a close and most bloggers will be writing about the winner, Na Yeon Choi but I’m going to highlight a player that did not even make the cut — American golfer, Tiffany Joh. Why? Because, whether it is intentional or not — she is in the process of building a unique personal brand.
This year Joh is struggling a bit with her game and is 115 in the Rolex World Rankings. However, Joh is a solid player and shows promise. Joh won twice on the LPGA’s Future tour. As a member of the LPGA 2011 Rookie Class, Joh had an excellent year with $237,365 in earnings and ranked eighty-seven (87) on the Rolex Women’s World Golf rankings list. Joh also had a top 10 finish in 2012. She was second at the Navistar Classic. Unfortunately for Joh, it was the tournament Lexi Thompson (Golf’s newly anointed “phenom”) made history as the youngest winner (at age 16) on the LPGA.
So what makes Joh unique? The PGA may have the Golf Boys but the LPGA has Tiffany Joh. She loves music and has become known for her music videos. This week, the week of the 2012 US Women’s Open, she posted her most recent video on her YouTube channel (Just Your Morning Cup of Joh.) The video is All I Do is Win (LPGA Remix). A parody of the song, “All I Do is Win” by Ludacris.
Joh has had a YouTube channel since 2008 but she really got noticed for her LPGA video last year “Grip It” (a parody of Freak Nasty’s 1996 hit song “Da’ Dip”). It’s amazing how she get’s her fellow LPGA players to be silly on video.
Not only is she clever and creative with music videos but she has a great channel title “Just your morning cup of Joh” and user name “CupofJoh” and has a cartoon-like drawing (self-portrait – I’m guessing) and uses it as her YouTube channel and Twitter background. All creating a unique personal brand.
The one thing that surprised me is that her website does not carry this branding. However, if you visit the website, Joh’s humor and attitude come through loud and clear with just a single page stating “You are a Nerd…Websites are for Nerds.” Is she ahead of the curve or just representative of her generation who live on social media? I believe it is the later. After all, the websites of the big golf stars are supported by big sponsor money. So Joh’s site may get an upgrade if she lands a major sponsor.
It’s not just that Joh is using social media but she is savvy too — do you think the timing of the recent video was a fluke? No way. The US Women’s open gets more press than any other women’s golf event and Joh’s video was all over twitter (at least the people who tweet about golf).
As I mentioned earlier, Joh did not make the cut at the US Women’s Open but her sense of humor never fails. Here is a screen shot of her tweet from the airport the next day:
If you are old school and think golfers should only get noticed for their golf achievements than Tiffany Joh’s style may not be your “cup of tea” (or joh); but I respect the fact that she has developed a personal brand that sets herself apart from all the other young female golfers on tour.