At media storm headquarters TMZ.com, the public has spoken. And they are overwhelmingly against Tiger Woods’ silence. In a poll, 94% (of more than 300,000 voters) said he was hiding something, which is a form of dishonesty. This can’t be good for sales of his sponsors products.
According to Paul Swangard of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, “Brands that planned to use Tiger in any meaningful way in the next few weeks would be looking to perhaps do something else, both out of respect for Tiger and because now isn’t the best time to have him out there peddling their product.”
Not the best time to be peddling their product. And why is that? Perhaps because he is losing credibility with those who buy his sponsor’s products, something that may not return.
In the forums and comments sections across the land Tiger fans are abandoning him in droves, fed up with his on course behavior, and now his failure to come clean about Friday morning’s accident and the events leading up to it.
And yet, according to CNN, his sponsors are still on board. “Tiger and his family have Nike’s full support,” Nike said in a statement. What choice do they have? Tiger is basically their golf division.
Gatorade is another who is heavily invested in Woods, have launched a drink named after him, so their response is also expectedly pro Tiger. “We wish Tiger well as he recovers and look forward to seeing him back on the course soon. Our partnership with Tiger continues,” said Gatorade.
According to CNN, “Gillette said it has not changed its marketing strategy because of the incident, but the company wouldn’t comment on any future plans.” Translation: sounds like they are keeping their options open. Their Champions marketing campaign features 12 athletes, with Woods, Derek Jeter, and Roger Federer headlining the program. It sounds like Woods is not essential to their success as he is to Nike and, to a lesser extent, Gatorade’s. Hence, he is expendable.
Several other sponsors did not make themselves available for comment, including AT&T, Accenture, and Tag Heuer despite having several days to craft statements confirming their vote-of-confidence. Their silence makes you wonder if they are they huddled around conference tables with their lawyers wondering how they can dump golf’s bad boy.
In my opinion, it is not a hard decision – Woods looks more and more like a high priced liability than the ideal spokesman. The corporate guys justify using him because he’s an “icon” and is “the world’s best known athlete.” So what? How do we know if he’s really good for net sales? Since Tiger joined the tour, he hasn’t exactly sold golf as participation has declined, a trend that started before the recession.
When Joe Consumer goes to buy razor blades, some might switch to Gillette because of Tiger, but some might change to another brand or never buy them because they are Tiger’s razor. Bottom line: does Tiger’s representation add or detract from sales? That’s the question I’d be asking if I was an exec at a sponsoring company.
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1 response so far ↓
1 BD // Dec 1, 2009 at 7:09 am
Seems a bit premature to write off Tiger as a marketable sports celebrity. In fact, it seems silly to do so. Just looking at it from purely a p.r./marketing perspective — to be clear, I’m not commenting on the effects on his family relationships, etc. — nothing has transpired that should do serious, lasting damage to his value as commercial spokesman. All we are given to understand is that he had a girlfriend on the road, the discovery of whom drove his wife to violent outrage. Now, Tiger and Elin may patch things up* and move on; or they could separate and divorce. Either way, this should be “old
news” in a year or two.
(*Assuming there is anything to “patch up.”)
Obviously, there have been many, many stars in and out of the sport of golf who have engaged in similar or even more egregious personal misconduct, but who are still highly valued as celebrity spokespersons.
I might have felt less sanguine about the effect of this episode on Tiger’s future commercial prospects had he built his image around being a great family man. However, that’s not really what the Tiger brand is all about. It’s about other-worldly domination of a game that seemingly can’t be dominated. Having a honey on the road doesn’t change that.
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