Recent relentless events virtually ensured that brands would start to question and even drop Tiger Woods from their marketing campaigns.

Tiger admitted that there was more to the incidents outside his home than he first admitted

A statement on his website said:

“I am deeply aware of the disappointment and hurt that my infidelity has caused to so many people, most of all my wife and children. I want to say again to everyone that I am profoundly sorry and that I ask forgiveness. It may not be possible to repair the damage I’ve done, but I want to do my best to try.”

“I would like to ask everyone, including my fans, the good people at my foundation, business partners, the PGA Tour, and my fellow competitors, for their understanding. What’s most important now is that my family has the time, privacy, and safe haven we will need for personal healing.”

“After much soul searching, I have decided to take an indefinite break from professional golf. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person.”

And the walls began to crumble

Initially some of his  brand sponsors dramatically reduced their endorsements and appearance fees, which at their height in total were estimated to be around £65m a year.

Sports drink manufacturer Gatorade recently withdrew a product branded with his name.  However that decision was reportedly made long before the scandal broke.

Accenture, a global consulting firm once ran an advertisement with the headline: “To accomplish more. sometimes you have to see less.”  The company has now taken this to heart by becoming the first of Tiger’s sponsors to completely drop him from marketing campaigns.

Accenture released a statement saying it was ending its business agreement with Woods, who had represented the company for six years.

“After careful consideration and analysis, the company has determined that he is no longer the right representative for its advertising,”

With Tiger not actually playing for the foreseeable future, Accenture’s move is hardly surprising: Virtually all their Woods featured marketing depends on the player – playing golf.  No tournaments means no context to an advertising campaign.

What are you made of? (Tag Heuer Tiger Woods campaign slogan)

One day after Accenture’s dramatic announcement there are mixed reports whether Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer which has been aligned with Tiger’s brand since 2002, will  maintain its association with Tiger.

“We will continue,”. “He’s the best in his domain. We respect his performance in the sport,” the company spokeswoman, Mariam Sylla, told the Associated Press. Woods’s personal life is “not our business”.

However Tag Heuer’s vice-president of communications stressed the company have not yet made an official decision over whether to continue their relationship with Woods and Francoise Bezzola told the Press Association: “We are not announcing that we will keep Tiger and we are not announcing we will drop Tiger Woods. We are still considering it and we haven’t taken a decision yet.”

Bezzola added that Tag Heuer is expected to make public their decision by the end of this week.

In Australia Tag Heuer has been reported to have  pulled down some poster advertisements featuring.

Perhaps the next in line to consider their agreement with ‘camp-Tiger’ may be the one sponsor best known for making Tiger so high profile in their advertising, Procter & Gamble Co’s, ‘Gillette’.  The brand recently announced it was reducing his part in its campaigns.

A reported statement said:

“As Tiger takes a break from the public eye, we will support his desire for privacy by limiting his role in our marketing programmes.”

Of all the sponsors, Gillette has the biggest public relations issue to consider by continuing using Tiger as a ‘pitch-man’. To begin with there is the queue of claimants who say they slept with Tiger (Including one who claimed that she and he had sex the night his father passed away).  Then there were the scenes car windows smashed by his wife with a golf-club… It just seems to go on and on…

For Gillette, the ethical issue must be particularly acute if only because in many cases, women often purchase razors for men.

Ninetendo Wii was banking on Tiger boosting Christmas sales of their ‘Tiger Woods PGA TOUR 09 All-Play’ videogame. At the very least, given the reports about his family life, this may become an awkward stocking filler to justify.

However, it is not all bad news for Tiger.   For now, sports goods giant Nike has decided to remain as loyal as a branded Nike cart-pushing caddy.

A spokesman said:

“Tiger has been part of Nike for more than a decade. “He is the best golfer in the world and one of the greatest athletes of his era. We look forward to his return to golf. He and his family have Nike’s full support.”

(The Associated Press reported that Nike’s golf business generates $650 million a year in revenue around Woods, so the timing of the scandal couldn’t be much worse).

Tiger’s withdrawal from golf would be one in the bunker for the sport in general. According to Nielsen Co the average television rating fell by nearly 50 per cent for a host of 2008 PGA tournaments that he missed whilst recovering from knee surgery.

Ewen Murray, the BSkyB golf commentator, said:

“He should stay away for a year. It will be a sad loss to the game, but I think he should write off 2010 and start again in 2011. I was as shocked as anyone when I heard what had been going on. Like everyone else I put him up there on a pedestal. I thought he was immaculate in shape and form. But he didn’t have a childhood.”

Tiger woods brand – where next?

The brand outlook

By not fully retracting their sponsorship, it seems that for now, many brands are actually hedging their bets – waiting to see how the public reacts next.

From a Brand Forensics view, Tiger is unlike many sports brand spokespeople.  His management team has spent years cultivating a ‘squeaky-clean’ image of the star and his family life. Other athletes have not necessarily made such claims.  It is for this reason, along with being labelled, ‘the billion dollar brand man’, that the story never seems to go away.

Peter Allis, English golfer, BBC television presenter and commentator said:

“He will be a figure of fun to comedians for years to come.”

Clearly to repair his personal brand, Tiger still has to take a very long walk on the road from perdition.

The spin doctors’ remedy: He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone (John 8:7)

Some spin-doctors argue that by publicly prioritising the rich blessings of his family and personal responsibilities before material fortunes, Tiger is broadcasting a contemporary message of a very ‘human’ man who, like so many others, is fallible – rather than an over- hyped hero.

As such a ‘normal’ man, who is more than the outward sum of his material wealth, Tiger has the opportunity to make good a truly dreadful mess for the people who really matter – his family and real friends.

The spin would be that by bravely doing so in the harsh glare of publicity he is indirectly also acting on behalf of many other men who wish that they too could make amends.

Following this logic, such a spin antidote could even turn out to mean that in the mid to longer term, he emerges as an even more powerful brand hero of the common people – one with more dimensions and so character than a ‘squeaky-clean’ corporately sanitised and so unrealistic and so little to emphasise with icon.

I am not so sure that the remedy would be 100% accepted by today’s more enlightened society. An apology shouldn’t condone any alleged miss-doings.  Indeed, if true, the accusations do nothing but show an appalling disrespect for women, children of broken homes and by association, the otherwise innocent men who play the noble game of golf.  (Hardly the appropriate message from a man marketed as the voice and face as well as role model for his profession).

However, today’s society also takes a more lenient approach to occasionally making what some may view as understandable slips. So sincere action– rather than staged platitudes and empty promises tend to earns respect from many sectors.

One possible move for Tiger’s team would be to encourage his wife to publicly state that she will only allow him to play golf on the condition that he sorts out his game off the course.

Arguably that would be a point score for feminism.

However in my opinion it would still implicitly sanction Tiger’s alleged actions and so send the wrong message to children, wives, families and broader society about what should rather than may constitute acceptable behaviour as espoused by brands.  This is a particularly important issue for many major American brands known to be particularly conservative about their public image.

Yet, timed right and managed correctly this Tiger may still have more than just a purr left in him.

Whichever way Tiger goes next, he will certainly have a lot to think about this holiday season whilst walking around the course after his family meal – attended – or not, by the really important people who should admire him at this time of year.

www.brandforensics.co.uk

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