Tiger Woods, failed storyteller

Over the weekend, Accenture dropped Tiger Woods as its spokesman, stating that he is “no longer the right representative.” Gillette will scale back Tiger’s face time in their campaigns, saying “As Tiger takes a break from the public eye, we will support his desire for privacy by limiting his role in our marketing programs,”  and watchmaker Tag Heuer says it is “examining its long-term relationship with him.”

Nike chairman Phil Knight has taken a different approach. He told SportsBusiness Journal that, “When his career is over, you’ll look back on these indiscretions as a minor blip, but the media is making a big deal out of it right now.”

While companies scramble to deal with the Tiger fallout, and no doubt struggle to decide how to handle their relationships with one of the greatest (and certainly richest) endorsers in history, it’s fair to ask the question that these companies should be asking themselves: is Tiger still credible as a pitchman?

I think the answer to that question depends on how Tiger is used as a storyteller.

For a company like Gillette, for whom Tiger is hawking razor blades and body wash, Knight’s take is probably on target. There’s no real story there; his visibility and name recognition is probably as important as anything, and his indiscretions don’t say anything about his choice of razor blade. (Although I’ve never entirely understood why companies like Gillette pay what they do for celebrity endorsements. Do I know that Tiger endorses Gillette? Of course. Do I care? Not at all. Either I like their blades or I don’t. I’m a sports fan, but after all these years of Tiger and other high-priced athletes promoting the battery-powered Gillette Fusion Power six-blade shaving system with on-board microchip (no joke), I’m still using the two-blade Gillette Sensor Excel. Which is endorsed by nobody. Well, now me.)

Nike is a little different. They trade on the Tiger mythology, which is not only about winning, but also about practice, focus, practice, determination, practice, performance under pressure, and practice. That Tiger turns out to be a kinky lothario won’t be forgotten, but if you’re looking for golf gear, it’s understandable that you could separate the personal from the professional, and that you’d still want to wear and use what Tiger wears and uses.

Accenture, however, built their association with Tiger on a different kind of mythology — the kind that told a story about character, judgment, integrity, foresight, and sound strategic decision-making.

Now that the cheating Tiger revelations have come to light, Tiger can no longer be used to tell that story. Any trace of authenticity in that story is gone.

In the aftermath of this mess, much has been made of how little we actually knew about Tiger. That lack of real knowledge made it that much easier to believe the mythology — to believe that the Tiger legend was true.

What’s ironic is that while so much of the Tiger legend still is true — his prodigious talent at a young age, his multicultural background, his relentless work ethic, and of course, all of those wins — the Tiger story now rings false.

Over the last couple years, I’ve taken pictures of the Accenture airport posters featuring Tiger — I hadn’t even realized how many until I started going through my photo archive — because I thought I might write about them someday, though I wasn’t quite sure what the story was.

I never imagined it would be this.

:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::