Phil:
Thanks for your reply. Can Gary alter his tone to the audience, yes we know that he can because he keeps WLTV PG-13 and actually has the swearing bleeped out, so his intentions are to keep it “clean” so it can appeal to a broad audience. That’s the image that people know him for because after 645+ episodes you kind of expect what you’ve seen. To then go to his language that he uses in his keynotes is a dramatic departure from what your expectations are and I don’t feel it adds to his message (nor is it necessary to convey his message.)

If I was a corporate booking agent or a corporate representative and I thought I was getting WLTV Gary and I got a profanity-laced R-rated performance, I probably would withhold half my payment because it’s not professional and wouldn’t be anticipated or expected. Now if they did their due-diligence and looked at his portfolio of keynotes, they would see that he swears like a “drunken sailor” and based on that I wouldn’t hire him for a corporate engagement because that language is not professional in a business setting. [The occasional cursing does sometimes occur, but we’re talking about a lot of cursing here…]

I’ll give you another example, if you ever go to a comedy show where the comedian is known to use profanity, they note that “adult language and themes will be used/present” on the tickets and in many instances do not allow unattended minors or in some cases do not allow minors at all. I did not count the number of s-bombs or f-bombs in the SXSW talk but it rivaled that of Eddie Murphy or Richard Pryor and it seemed that every-other response had at least one.

Did that make people walk out? No because they were there for the content of his talk. One of Gary’s constant messages is talking about monetizing things like himself his brand, etc. For him to maximize that he needs to clean up his language, that’s a corporate world fact, not something I’m just giving an opinion on. What corporate national spokesperson campaigns does Howard Stern have? None, because companies that are looking to promote products to a mass audience do not want to be associated with his language and show antics. What products did Eddie Murphy endorse? Look at the recent actions of Michael Phelps and how some of the sponsors left him because of his actions. When you are selling yourself as your own brand all of the sudden your actions and words matter, otherwise shows like TMZ, Extra, Insider, ET, etc. wouldn’t exist.

So my point is that if Gary wants to truly maximize his brand and monetize it to the extent he’s able then he needs to keep the language he uses to the standard he established on WLTV. Does that mean he can never swear? Not at all, but it would be better left to discussions and presentations that are “off the record”.