A 'Winning' Brand

The recent hype that surrounds Charlie Sheen is being covered by every media source imaginable. I feel it almost cliché to write about it but because the brand development is so forward thinking and opportunistic, I can’t help myself.

For those of you who don’t know, let’s quickly follow the timeline of this now infamous film and television actor. Prior to the last six months, Sheen lived a relatively normal life for a Hollywood celebrity and son of famous, Martin Sheen. He married three times, was often spotted spending time with famous porn stars and occasionally visited a rehab facility to ‘clean’ himself of all types of drugs and alcohol. This was enough to keep tabloid interest but until recently the Charlie Sheen brand only existed in theory.

Fast-forward to the ‘Charlie Sheen breakdown’ in February of this year when CBS stopped production on the number one television show in America, “Two and a Half Men,” of which Sheen was the star. This was the focal point of this whole Sheen fairy tale as he and his genius PR team then decided to start a revolution of ‘epic proportions’.

CBS claims to have put the show on hiatus due to Sheen’s rehabilitation plans. The CBS statement was given immediately following Sheen being rushed to the hospital for abdominal pains in the middle of the night after allegedly partying for two days straight. As Sheen did not plan to enter a rehabilitation facility, there was an adverse reaction from the star. Naturally, Sheen wanted production to resume as he was being paid $1.25 million for EACH episode. Looking back, that number is nothing compared to the money his winning brand is making now.

The revolution began with Sheen getting his own opinion on the issue out to the world. He gave live interviews to every news source imaginable, spitting his ‘genius’ all over American television and the net. As a trained comedian Sheen naturally developed some pretty catchy material through these interviews. High on himself but agreeing to take drug tests to prove his sobriety, Sheen spoke of his importance, god-like methods and described himself over and over as ‘winning’. Who knew this word would turn to gold as it spurred out of Charlie Sheen’s mouth?

The digital world paved the road for Sheen’s take over. He began recording his own video series with his home web-cam, picturing him doing ‘what winners do’- hanging out at home with pretty young girls on his lap, smoking cigarettes and talking about how awesome he is. #CharlieSheen was at the top of the trend list on Twitter for days straight and #winning and #tigersblood, another ‘Sheenism’, continue to reach the top of the list every day, months after the phrases were first coined by Sheen. The actor holds a world record now as the fastest person ever to get one million Twitter followers. His time, 25 hours and 17 minutes.

You can also find Sheen all over Facebook. Statuses are constantly mentioning ‘winning’ and 'drinking tiger’s blood'. Several users are posting, “Charlie Sheen for president” and statuses such as, “Charlie Sheen is a warlock”. The Charlie Sheen fan page has jumped 300,000 since his first web series and the actor is posting links to his new money-making websites daily.

Sheenisms are common among young people these days and I can admit that at times I have announced that I’m ‘winning’ to my colleagues.

The Winning! Facebook fan page, picturing Charlie Sheen in the place of Barack Obama in the famous presidential campaign poster image, has constant traffic. Winning! Fans have jumped to over 20,000 in just a month, since the group was first established.

Although Sheen may have been high on drugs, himself, or whatever, this personal branding was no accident. On one of Sheen’s first disturbing yet revealing web series episodes, the viewer can actually listen to a conversation between Sheen and his publicist, discussing how to sell Sheen’s ‘winning’ attitude and warlock-type powers. This includes his publicist complementing Sheen's Twitter and Facebook status updates, describing them as “brilliant”.


You can now visit the website, winning.com where Sheen merchandise can be purchased and you can find the latest news on Sheen, his goddesses and team of supporters. As part of this phenomenon, Sheen is now speaking all over America and Canada in a “My Violent Torpedo of Truth / Defeat is Not an Option” tour. One can only imagine what these speaking engagements will include but they are selling out by the minute. Everyone wants to get a piece of Sheen’s magic.

To top it all off and show us that he really is a warlock, Sheen is donating one dollar from each ticket sold on tour to the Red Cross Japanese Earthquake Relief Fund. This brand even practices CSR!

I am jumping on the Charlie Sheen train with this article, but how avant-garde to make lemonade out of a lemon of a public relations accident! After this incident, the Charlie Sheen brand will live on forever with ‘winning’ and ‘tiger’s blood’ making millions of dollars long after any television show airs on American television.

I agree with you, Charlie Sheen, you are winning and your team of genius brand managers, public relations professionals and the digital geeks behind computer screens in your Hollywood mansion should get all the credit, or at least a piece of your millions.