Tiger not out of the Woods

by Paul Allen.

The blushes radiating from Accenture over the past two weeks must have increased global warming a deg re e or two. Of all the advertising taglines used to promote the large number of products Tiger Woods gets paid millions a year to endorse, it was the slogan used by the global consulting giant that proved the most unfortunate:

‘Go on. Be a Tiger.’

While the rest of the world sniggered, Accenture decided to terminate its relationship with the world’s best golfer and richest sports star. Accenture was the first major sponsor to cut ties with the superstar since his alleged extramarital affairs surfaced and he announced his indefinite leave from the sport.

Having celebrities endorse brands can often end in catastrophe.

When Bacardi hooked up with self-styled hard man Vinnie Jones in 2003, it ended up scrapping its €2million Christmas advertising campaign after the star slapped a fellow passenger not once, but ten times on a flight from London to Tokyo.

To make matters worse, Jones told crew members who tried to intervene he could ‘‘get them murdered’’.

Jones, who was convicted for his drunken air rage assault, should have read the small print at the end of his Bacardi adverts - ‘‘drink responsibly’’.

But Jones aside, don’t expect many of Woods’s other sponsors to sever their ties. Nike, for example, has stood squarely behind the star as he struggles through the bad publicity. But this is not surprising seeing as Nike has purchased almost every aspect of the Woods brand in a deal reputedly worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Despite the current storm swirling around Woods, celebrity endorsements are still key to brands. Consumers prefer products that have a strong, positive image.

An important ingredient of this image is the ‘brand personality’ - what people think and feel, consciously and subconsciously, about a company or product.

It can be hard for inanimate products to develop ‘brand personality’, so companies try to build on associations between products and the personalities that they pay to endorse their products. The purpose of this is to help consumers develop a clear view of the brand values that make up the brand personality, just like the values and beliefs associated with the celebrity who is endorsing their product.

However, brands linked with Woods are now working with a double-edged sword, according to Randall Beard of Nielsen IAG. ‘‘The saturation of Tiger in the media has heightened the recognition of his sponsor affiliations. But at the same time for these brands, the controversy is contributing to a more negative impact on public perception. It’s the age-old debate: is all publicity good publicity?"

But any corporation associating itself with one person is leaving itself vulnerable. Any scandals they are involved in might also be reflected onto the sponsor. For example, data from a Nielsen Buzzmetrics Brand Association Map studied the language used online that centred around Woods before and after the scandal broke. Prior to his secret life becoming media fodder, adjectives such as ‘great’, ‘good’ and ‘best’ were the most often used terms associated with the golfing great.

But as the list of women that claimed to have slept with Woods grew, the analysis showed words like ‘mistress’ and ‘affair’ drowned out positive commentary associated with the golfer.

But while the short-term public perception of Woods has been affected, it is unlikely Woods’s image will be damaged over the long term if he returns to golf and maintains his invincible form on the links. Before all of the hullabaloo, Woods was every marketer’s dream. Every time he was featured in a TV advert, sponsors on average saw a 16 per cent higher recall of the commercial, a 22 per cent higher brand recall and a 39 per cent higher net likeability when compared to adverts from brands that did not feature Woods.

Woods should take solace from the tale of US basketball superstar Kobe Bryant. His sponsors abandoned him after he was accused of sexually assaulting a 19-year-old hotel worker.

Even though the case was eventually dropped, Bryant issued a statement saying: ‘‘I want to apologise. Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual. I recognise now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did."

The sponsors eventually returned and he regained his superstar status. Even domestic goddess Martha Stewart managed to rebuild her queen like status after serving a prison sentence.

So, despite the tsunami of negative media that has engulfed the golfing star, it is unlikely Woods’s image will be damaged over the long term.

But he needs to face up to the allegations, take responsibility and come clean about his misdemeanours, rather than stick his head in the sand and hope the storm will blow over.

Finally, while Woods may not have been mortally hurt in his head-on collision with the media, his PR handling of the scandal has been way below par.