Not to be simplistic, but the NFL is pretty big business. It didn’t get that way by letting just anybody do whatever they want on the field of play. Message discipline always rules the day when it comes too league matters.

And in the last couple of weeks we’ve seen the League crack down on two individuals who dared to sully the message in the stadium.

The first incident was the launch of a brilliant “ambush marketing” campaign by Captain Morgan. In the Eagles-Cowboys game November 8^th, Eagles tight end Brent Celek  caught a touchdown pass, then celebrated by putting his hands on his hips and raising his right leg, mimicking the pose that the pirate on Captain Morgan’s label makes. At the time, nobody knew what he was doing. A couple days later it came out that Celek was the first player to participate in the spiced run company’s effort to raise brand awareness; for each time a player was caught on camera doing the pose, Captain Morgan was going to make a $10,000 donation to the charity Gridiron Greats Assistance Fund – a non-profit which helps retired NFL players with various hardships after leaving the game.

A good cause. A clever campaign. But the NFL won’t let it happen again. League spokesman Greg Aiello said you just can’t do that.

The NFL does not permit on field advertising that it doesn’t approve (or get a cut of). The league wants to project a wholesome image, and Captain Morgan isn’t part of that.

Speaking of not wholesome, how about 86-year-old Tennessee Titans’ owner Bud Adams? He flipped the bird to Bills fans in Buffalo this past weekend after his team stomped the hapless Bills.

Unseemly, to be sure. Certainly, Commissioner Roger Goodell thought so – he fined Adams $250,000. That’s a quarter of a million dollars. Prediction – this won’t happen again.

Critics – especially sportswriters – sometimes knock the NFL for being the “No Fun League.” For being uptight. For being obsessed with its image. But ask any politician whoever won elective office – message discipline is important. Sometimes, the people in control need to assert that control, if only for consistency sake. These last two weeks, the NFL has asserted control and let everybody know that when it comes to its image, this is not the Wild West.

Michael Schwalbe writes about a lesson he learned as an alpine ski racer known as the “40-30-30 Rule.” His instructor explained that for most sports, success was only 40% physical training, and the other 60% was mental. Of that 60, 30% was technical skill and and experience and the other 30% was the willingness to take risks.

“To improve at anything, we must at some point push ourselves outside our comfort zone.”

This statement is true for many professions. As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert notes, it’s more than just building on our skill sets where we learn the most. It’s when we take risks, put ourselves outside of our safe zones, push the envelope, that we truly reach our “highest level of performance.” Because learning how not to do something, then figuring how the right way to do it, is better than not having risked it in the first place.

The Burberry raincoat has been a fashion icon for over 95-years, even in this recession remains Burberry’s best-selling item.  Yet like all industries during these tough economic times, the luxury retail industry is being hit hard, and even companies as successful as Burberry need to reevaluate their approach, as they come to the realization that their highly affluent but aging customers are cutting back on their spending.

So Burberry’s CEO, Angela Ahrendts, is attempting to bring Burberry online, and reach a new generation of shoppers, through, yes, you guessed it, social media.

On Monday, Burberry introduced a social networking site, called artofthetrench.com.  The site encourages people to share their own trench coat stories, and describes itself as “a living document of the trench coat and the people who wear it.” The site shows everyday people wearing Burberry trench coats and the company invites photographers and trench coat owners to participate and will then add the best of the submitted shots to add to the site. Users are encouraged to comment on and share photos, with the site linking directly to Facebook Connect.

Burberry’s step into the social media stratosphere reflects a growing trend in luxury goods companies.   Traditionally, these companies have scoffed at the idea of taking to the web, seeing it as a place for shoppers looking for a cheap deal, who are searching for knock-offs or counterfeits.  Today, however, these companies are throwing previous perceptions out the window, realizing that if they want to reach a younger audience, they have to get online and into the social media space, as quickly as possible.

In September, Fabergé, creator of the Imperial Easter eggs, started selling its new jewelry collection almost exclusively on the Web. In October, Gucci launched its own iPhone/iTouch app and micro social networking site, Salvatore Ferragamo Spa launched and online store, and Giorgio Armani unveiled plans for a mobile commerce site.

After an eight percent decline this year, the $226 billion global market for luxury goods is expected to grow again next year as younger consumers and working women replace retiring baby boomers, and it appears as if Burberry and these other luxury goods companies will use there presence online to help ensure these sales.

To date, Burberry has more than 699,000 Facebook fans and is also attracting customers via Twitter and Youtube, and far the company is doing well, with the price of its shares doubling during the past year.  Of course much of this is due to Ahrendts’ business savvy, but it appears as if connecting with the next generation of buyers is also a key factor.

At Braithwaite we are in the business of story telling, and one of the ways we help our clients get their stories out, is online and through the social media space.  So we would like to say, hats er coats off to Ahrendts, for telling the untold story of the trench through the web, Facebook, and Twitter.

More adults interact with televisions than newspapers, so says a Nielsen study from the Council for Research Excellence (CRE). Not surprising.

How about this: more adults connect to broadcast radio than the Internet. Put another way, radio reaches more adults in the U.S. than the Internet. Surprised?

The study, which physically observed adults during their media consumption, found: 95 percent of adults see live television; 77 percent hear broadcast radio; 64 percent use the Web; 35 percent read a newspaper; and, 27 percent read magazines.

From a public relations perspective, one could easily look at this chart and say, “Let’s put all of our marketing effort into TV and radio.” You’d be wrong. The problem with this chart is it shows penetration by media. It doesn’t show the level of user “activeness” or “passiveness.”

This percentage of penetration is inversely related to the level of activity or passivity – with watching TV as the most passive and reading a magazine as the most active. Take your own consumption as an example. How often is a TV on, but you’re not watching actively? Do you listen to a radio while multitasking, doing things like driving, cooking or exercising? Now, what about if you read a print newspaper or magazine? Are you doing anything else? Probably not.

The category not in the equation is the Internet, which is split among active and passive involvement. Video and audio elements on the web are making it more passive, while social media and other interactive elements are making it more active.

A proper marketing and public relations campaign should be well balanced – it must reach key audiences through active and passive means.