As the Tiger fall out continues (I think it's something like day 17 or 18 now), the business stories have begun to 
focus on which of Tiger’s many multi-million dollar sponsors will terminate their relationship with him. Of course, now that the shock of his transgressions has worn off, this is the most natural issue to turn to. Today, Gillette announced that it will severely limit Tiger's involvement with company endorsements. No surprise, Accenture has removed him from its Web Site and pretty much every other sponsor has stopped promoting Tiger in any way.
That's all par for this course. Yet, I believe there is a larger, more significant issue that all marketers need to be thinking about: If Tiger Woods, the ultimate gold standard role model for kids and adults alike can fall from grace like this, then is any athlete or celebrity sponsorship safe anymore? And, should the sponsorship industry make wholesale changes to its strategies now when it comes to focusing on singular celebrity endorsements to build brands?
My answer is no... and yes. Here's my deeper explanation.
Tying a brand (or company's) image so closely to one (or even two) celebrity endorsements(s) has always been a risky proposition. Over the last 20 years, I've heard many a client tell me that his/her worst fear is to receive that call (or email) from some reporter who has the scoop that their corporate sponsor has been caught using drugs, abusing his wife or living out some other illegal or unethical act that will surely create big customer/investor problems. Still, in the past, the reward has clearly outperformed the potential risk for some very smart marketers like Nike, Gatorade and Accenture (which have achieved major business gains through singular endorsements). I believe that part of the reason for their success is because they seem to be highly selective with whom they allow to represent their brand (one would think an accounting firm has a very sophisticated risk analysis process for vetting endorsement candidates). And, when their celebrities got themselves into real troubles (think Michael Jordan as Nike's face when he had serious gambling issues), this 24/7 digital landscape (which never allows for stories to die) either didn't exist, or wasn't nearly as powerful as it has become today.
The latter point is what marketers should really be concerned about. For the heck of it, I googled the words 'Tiger' and 'Nike' just now. Something to the tune of 1,700 stories, blogs, tweets and other discussions/articles came up. Many have threads of content which question Nike's decision making behind associating Tiger as the "face and ethics of its brand." Unlike what happened in the "old days" of Michael Jordan, Nike's stock and sales have now taken a real hit because it's so closely associated with Tiger. The power behind digital communications is that it allows for anyone to push out opinions (like me), create more gossip and in this case, initiate a continually growing "mob-like," virtual attack that has clearly played a major supporting role in hurting this sports apparel company's core business.
Tiger stood for all those wonderful qualities (commitment, professionalism, can do attitude, winning, pure and ethical, etc.) that its sponsors believed would never fail them. In many ways, Tiger was a no-brainer...the ultimate safe sponsorship. So now, there is no one or nothing that truly is a safe bet.
Corporate marketers need to change their "bet everything on the farm" endorsement strategies now. They might want to take a page out of the pharmaceutical industry's drug development strategy play book instead. These giant companies invest billions of dollars on dozens of drugs with the hope that just one or two might eventually make it to market as a block buster seller. They have to hedge their bets across many drug investments because each one has such a low risk of ever baring real fruit. And, the risk is simply too great to place a company's future behind one miracle cure.
In this same vein, corporate marketers cannot look at one beloved athlete as its "miracle cure" anymore. Instead, they should create many, smaller, but equally focused endorsements which allow for brands to achieve more modest benefits from attributes that each celebrity brings to its products or company. And, they can bypass all the unavoidable risk and eventual disasters that one endorsement will probably bring someday. Remember, one face associated with a company or brand completely ties the two together in almost every way. On the flip side, any one of 15 or 30 faces which are far less promoted with said company or brand, can be extricated so much more painlessly should the need arise.
That's all par for this course. Yet, I believe there is a larger, more significant issue that all marketers need to be thinking about: If Tiger Woods, the ultimate gold standard role model for kids and adults alike can fall from grace like this, then is any athlete or celebrity sponsorship safe anymore? And, should the sponsorship industry make wholesale changes to its strategies now when it comes to focusing on singular celebrity endorsements to build brands?
My answer is no... and yes. Here's my deeper explanation.
Tying a brand (or company's) image so closely to one (or even two) celebrity endorsements(s) has always been a risky proposition. Over the last 20 years, I've heard many a client tell me that his/her worst fear is to receive that call (or email) from some reporter who has the scoop that their corporate sponsor has been caught using drugs, abusing his wife or living out some other illegal or unethical act that will surely create big customer/investor problems. Still, in the past, the reward has clearly outperformed the potential risk for some very smart marketers like Nike, Gatorade and Accenture (which have achieved major business gains through singular endorsements). I believe that part of the reason for their success is because they seem to be highly selective with whom they allow to represent their brand (one would think an accounting firm has a very sophisticated risk analysis process for vetting endorsement candidates). And, when their celebrities got themselves into real troubles (think Michael Jordan as Nike's face when he had serious gambling issues), this 24/7 digital landscape (which never allows for stories to die) either didn't exist, or wasn't nearly as powerful as it has become today.
The latter point is what marketers should really be concerned about. For the heck of it, I googled the words 'Tiger' and 'Nike' just now. Something to the tune of 1,700 stories, blogs, tweets and other discussions/articles came up. Many have threads of content which question Nike's decision making behind associating Tiger as the "face and ethics of its brand." Unlike what happened in the "old days" of Michael Jordan, Nike's stock and sales have now taken a real hit because it's so closely associated with Tiger. The power behind digital communications is that it allows for anyone to push out opinions (like me), create more gossip and in this case, initiate a continually growing "mob-like," virtual attack that has clearly played a major supporting role in hurting this sports apparel company's core business.
Tiger stood for all those wonderful qualities (commitment, professionalism, can do attitude, winning, pure and ethical, etc.) that its sponsors believed would never fail them. In many ways, Tiger was a no-brainer...the ultimate safe sponsorship. So now, there is no one or nothing that truly is a safe bet.
Corporate marketers need to change their "bet everything on the farm" endorsement strategies now. They might want to take a page out of the pharmaceutical industry's drug development strategy play book instead. These giant companies invest billions of dollars on dozens of drugs with the hope that just one or two might eventually make it to market as a block buster seller. They have to hedge their bets across many drug investments because each one has such a low risk of ever baring real fruit. And, the risk is simply too great to place a company's future behind one miracle cure.
In this same vein, corporate marketers cannot look at one beloved athlete as its "miracle cure" anymore. Instead, they should create many, smaller, but equally focused endorsements which allow for brands to achieve more modest benefits from attributes that each celebrity brings to its products or company. And, they can bypass all the unavoidable risk and eventual disasters that one endorsement will probably bring someday. Remember, one face associated with a company or brand completely ties the two together in almost every way. On the flip side, any one of 15 or 30 faces which are far less promoted with said company or brand, can be extricated so much more painlessly should the need arise.
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