Tiger's Sponsors Have Only Themselves to Blame
Key points
1. Fortune 500 marketing departments had the same blinders on that we all had—they simply could not fathom Tiger Woods as a fallible human being.
2. The evidence for that failure is clear: Not one of Tiger’s sponsors had a realistic backup plan—or crisis management plan—to protect their brand investment.
3. As much as we’d like to say we’ve learned our lesson, sponsorship is too easy and too effective to ignore. But if our industry wants to continue using it, we need to get better at mitigating the risks.
You’d think after 50 years of using spokespeople to build brands, we’d have seen this coming.
But of course, we didn’t.
Despite over 10 years of superhuman feats on the golf course, we learn, inevitably, that “Tiger” is a human after all. I’ll dispense with the moral outrage (this time is painful enough for his family). I’ll dispense with the media conspiracy theories (silly, just plain silly). Those might make for good talk show banter, but they are irrelevant to “Tiger: The Business.”
And this is big business. Specifically, a $100–million-dollar-a-year business for Tiger, and billions for the sponsors involved.
So if Tiger is human after all, and we (as a sports-watching public) were caught blissfully unaware, surely the Fortune 500 firms who signed on with Tiger knew what to expect. Obviously, they understood the risks. Undoubtedly, they were prepared for any eventuality. Just look at the number of Ivy-League MBAs on the marketing staff! No question, we could count on them to guide their brands through this rough patch.
Right?
Wrong.
In a stunning, but not at all surprising, display of ineptitude, each and every one of Tiger’s sponsors clearly was missing a “Plan B.” How do I know? Just look at some of the key sponsors and their statements following Tiger’s “revelations.”
From Accenture on the decision to quickly drop Tiger from its ad campaign:
“After careful consideration and analysis, the company has determined that he is no longer the right representative for its advertising . . . [Accenture] wishes only the best for Tiger Woods and his family.”
The announcement went on to argue that because the Accenture campaign focused on golf specifically (see an example below), and Tiger would be “taking a break” from golf, the campaign no longer made sense.

No longer made sense. Right.
What they meant, of course, is that the image of Tiger no longer aligned with the image of the firm they wanted to project. And I have no problem with that. Every firm needs to make that call. That is smart brand management. But here’s where it isn’t smart. Accenture (and its New York ad agency Y&R) announced they would be making an “immediate transition” to some other campaign. Hmm. I’d use a more apt description of the meetings that week: “immediate scramble” to find something else that works.
No Plan B.
But at least Accenture is thinking quickly, albeit after the (could-have-seen-it-coming) fact.
That’s more than one can say for other sponsors.
Nike is taking the “wait and see” approach. For now, they are taking the “admirable” position of “standing by their man.” One could argue that’s the “sports brand” sort of thing to do—you don’t abandon your teammates. Nike supports Tiger’s decision to take time off. The Nike brand supports athletes. Hmm. Color me skeptical, but my guess is that Nike is waiting to see what affect this has on sales.
No Plan B.
If Accenture was caught blindsided—then it at least moved quickly, and if Nike’s decision could be rationally justified, at least for now, Tiger’s other sponsors are acting simply clueless.
For Electronic Arts (EA Sports): Who’s going to buy a PGA golf video game without Tiger on the cover? Sorry, but he’s the reason they sell golf video games at all to the under–40 set. Good luck with building up another draw of his caliber.
No Plan B.
Proctor and Gamble’s Gillette: “The best a man can get” seems a both sadly funny and pointedly inappropriate featuring Tiger, doesn’t it? They’re sticking with him, for now. That is, until women (who buy most of the razors during family shopping trips) decide they won’t put up with it.
Even at the venerable P&G: No Plan B.
Tag Heuer: Still sponsoring Tiger until just a few days ago, the Swiss watchmaker’s continuing support was the least strategic of all. Why? All we need to is look at buyer behavior: Many watches in this price range are gifts for men. From their wives. An image of Tiger is not something I would want my wife thinking about if she were considering a Tag Heuer. (Not that my wife would ever buy me a $5,000 watch, but I digress). They struggled, obviously, with the decision. Tiger has been a gravy train. It’s no so easy to let that go.
It’s even harder when you have no Plan B.
If sponsorship advertising is so risky, why do presumably bright ad execs go ahead with it anyway? Simple: It’s easy. A sponsorship is a mental shortcut for customer. To briefly explain: Customer has a positive vision in his mind about the Celebrity. That positive vision matches the attributes of the Brand. If said Celebrity endorses said Brand, the Customer immediately makes the connection between the two. In other words, instead of building that connection in the Customer’s mind over time, a sponsorship can propel the image of the brand forward much faster.
And faster is what counts. Brands have life cycles, and markets have windows.
Let me be clear: A sponsorship strategy is not lazy advertising in and of itself. What is lazy (and delusional) is thinking the gravy train will never derail.
In other words, you must have a Plan B, even when you are using presumably “safe” sponsors like Tiger Woods. (I won’t even attempt to count the number of celebrity sponsors who trod this path before).
For the billions of dollars in brand equity on the line, not one of Tiger’s sponsors had a reasonable contingency plan. This is basic risk management. They should have known better.
Hopefully brands and their ad agencies will have learned their lesson this time. But I doubt it.
Related links
Google Images Search Result: “Tiger Woods Advertisements”


















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