Is There a Tiger in Your Tank?

To talk or not to talk? That is the question, but with nothing but dodging from Florida, the blogosphere is more than happy to answer.

While Tiger maintains his silence, or his roundabout explanation that fuels guilt and scandal yet explains nothing, has this mega-superceleb squeaky clean sure thing fallen like … like … Kobe and Phelps and Serena and Michael Vick and Britney and Chris Brown and Kanye and … and … well, you get the drift.

Celebrity endorsements mean a big cha-ching for product placement and sales. Celebrities are a brand onto themselves, as corporations are quick to scoop up the good ol’ boys and girls to be their shining star. But who calculates the missteps? What is the cost of damage control — the necessary clean ups in Aisle Life – when the star crashes to earth?  Or into the neighbor’s tree?

Tiger screwed up (or perhaps he didn’t). We don’t know how or why or when or what, but his silence is deafening. And the corporate bigwigs are squirming big time. Buick, Nike, Gatorade, Gillette, TAG Heuer, Accenture, AT&T.  Is this fixable? What’s it going to cost?  What’s plan B for when the best and brightest prove to be all too human? The brands Tiger represents are now running through the “what if” scenarios, praying for a minor character flaw and not a shock and awe to their brand image.

Sure, celebs of yesteryear were only human too. But that was before Twitter, Facebook, TMZ, MySpace, breaking news all night and all day, and with a buzz of a CNN update, dirty laundry is spilled for all to see.

Speak now, Dear Mr. Clean, or others will speak for you. The blogosphere is erupting. If Tiger doesn’t talk, others put words into his mouth and ergo, the mouths of his sponsors. And the many, many customers are just waiting and listening, wallets in hand.

2 comments

  1. Kate Mayer on December 2, 2009 at 11:27 AM said:

    Yes, beware of angry wives with or without golf clubs! Agreed Tiger will prevail, but alas, we’re going to get the play-by-play apologies ad nauseum, like a slow, steady drip. He’s apologizing to his family (and fans, why else the commentary on his website). But what about his endorsements? He’s a billionaire, yes from hitting a ball around the green, but the plug of Gatorade, Nike, Tag Heur, Accenture, blahblahblah significantly added to those coffers. As for his wife, there’s the golf club . . . but how ’bout his extended marketing ‘family’? They’re just hoping the gossip mill doesn’t get too nasty, too icky, too tabloidesque to effect the bottom line (too drastically…) Hoping in conference rooms around the world, ‘How bad can it be? He’s Tiger . . .’

  2. John Furgurson on December 1, 2009 at 8:58 PM said:

    I’m not sure that Tiger still has an endorsement with Buick. Lucky for them, because he was driving a Cadillac. That’s whachya call the Tiger Slam, 2009.

    The Tiger Woods brand will weather this storm. As soon as he wins another major, all will be forgotten. Although I’m a bit concerned about the angry wife wielding a golf club.

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