Is the Tiger Woods brand permanently damaged?

1. On the Tiger Woods brand itself. I think he and it will recover, and frankly I don’t think it will take more than a year or so. He’ll recover as a brand because he is not just a high profile sportsman, but one who is genuinely liked and admired by millions of people the world over. He has, you might say, put a lot of brand in the bank, which is what brands need when they hit a crisis. If he’s careful and sensible now then all that stored brand value will see him through, as long as he doesn’t do anything else to mess up. His actual income in terms of sponsorship and so on will suffer for a while, but brand Tiger is far from finished. He’s just too great a sportsman and too admired a figure for that.

Actually I would go so far as to say that, whilst I’m not condoning his actions, he is now clearly a more rounded and more ‘human’ personality. If his brand had a weakness before it was the weakness of perfection. He was perhaps a bit too good to be true. Now we know he’s just a bloke with flaws. That’s sort of reassuring. I think, if anything, in the long run he will prove to be a richer brand as a result, especially if he can reflect on and accommodate this new aspect of his character.

2. On the response of sponsors. America is the kind of country where a moral response is expected from companies, so he is bound to have sponsors dropping him, reassessing contracts etc..  but I think the smart ones will try to look long term rather than short and to be careful not to try to look holier than though by disassociating themselves. He didn’t kill anyone after all. We have admired him because he’s a great sportsman. Now he is being judged by different standards.

3. On the whole issue of high profile celebrity brand sponsorship… I think both the corporates and the celebrities can be accused of wanting to have their cake and eat it. The companies want the glamour by association with the celeb hero but they also demand a kind of inhuman perfection. They therefore always run the risk of their chosen people turning out to be human after all. Shame on them for their hypocrisy and moralising I say. Meanwhile the celebs want the money that the sponsorship deals bring, and they doubtless know exactly what’s expected of them when they take the cash… but of course they then ask for ‘privacy’ and to be treated as ‘people’. So my sympathy for the celebs doesn’t stretch very far. Both parties think they can have everything their way. I think the reality of commerce and life is that they can’t.

In summary, the high profile celeb brand endorsement game is a dangerous one. Not so much a pact with the devil, more a pact with flawed human beings.

Woods will recover, but it’s going to be messy and hypocritical and rather horrible to watch for a few months to come. Of course the real winners here (in the most unpleasant way) are the tabloids of the world, whose stock in trade is shame.

Date posted: Thursday 10th December 2009Back to news home page >