To talk or not to talk? That is the question, but with nothing but dodging from Florida, the blogosphere is more than happy to answer.

While Tiger maintains his silence, or his roundabout explanation that fuels guilt and scandal yet explains nothing, has this mega-superceleb squeaky clean sure thing fallen like … like … Kobe and Phelps and Serena and Michael Vick and Britney and Chris Brown and Kanye and … and … well, you get the drift.

Celebrity endorsements mean a big cha-ching for product placement and sales. Celebrities are a brand onto themselves, as corporations are quick to scoop up the good ol’ boys and girls to be their shining star. But who calculates the missteps? What is the cost of damage control — the necessary clean ups in Aisle Life – when the star crashes to earth?  Or into the neighbor’s tree?

Tiger screwed up (or perhaps he didn’t). We don’t know how or why or when or what, but his silence is deafening. And the corporate bigwigs are squirming big time. Buick, Nike, Gatorade, Gillette, TAG Heuer, Accenture, AT&T.  Is this fixable? What’s it going to cost?  What’s plan B for when the best and brightest prove to be all too human? The brands Tiger represents are now running through the “what if” scenarios, praying for a minor character flaw and not a shock and awe to their brand image.

Sure, celebs of yesteryear were only human too. But that was before Twitter, Facebook, TMZ, MySpace, breaking news all night and all day, and with a buzz of a CNN update, dirty laundry is spilled for all to see.

Speak now, Dear Mr. Clean, or others will speak for you. The blogosphere is erupting. If Tiger doesn’t talk, others put words into his mouth and ergo, the mouths of his sponsors. And the many, many customers are just waiting and listening, wallets in hand.

There’s a guy named Scott Ginsberg and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen him, but he has his website called HelloMyNameIsScott.com and for the past 2,900+ days, he’s worn a nametag. Which means, he’s been wearing a nametag everyday for the past 8 years. Scott wears his nametag every single day no matter where he is going. If he’s doing laundry, he’s wearing the nametag that says, “Hello, my name is Scott”.

His story is very interesting and at some point he even got a tattoo where his nametag would be – presumably to take care of days at the beach. That’s Scott’s “thing”. There is no question that Scott is at the very center of his brand.

And, being at the center of your brand gives you a level of differentiation that’s hard for your market to ignore.

Scott happens to help companies make their brands more approachable to their markets – so it makes sense that his “calling card” would be a nametag. It works perfectly for him. He’s done a good job with that.

But, what about you? What if you’re the center of your brand and you don’t want that dynamic anymore? You’ve found yourself being the Scott Ginsberg, the Dr. Phil, the Madonna of your brand you’re sorry you developed your brand in that way.

You want to be able to take a break.  You want to sell the company.  You are’re interested anymore.  You have had a nervous breakdown. Whatever the case, you want out. What do you do?

Well, you think, “that’s tough”.  You think it’d be hard to do for the obvious reason – YOU are the brand.

Let’s look at Martha Stewart. Let’s say, for example, that she wants to sell her company. I believe she might make out BETTER than if the brand was NOT centered around her as THE brand’s personality. Look at it from a marketing standpoint: there wouldn’t be a Martha Stewart satellite radio station, cooking show, magazine, retail lines – without Martha Stewart being at the forefront.

She has also created a meaning behind the brand – well, her marketing people have. When you know something is made by Martha Stewart’s company, that means certain things – quality, fair price, equality – and those things aren’t really about her personally. It’s become what the brand means to consumers.

So, if YOU are the brand, there might not be so much to worry about. Just make sure the brand MEANS something aside from you so that when you exit, you don’t take the brand with you.