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Tiger? What were you thinking?
Published 11:30am Wednesday, December 16, 2009The Tiger Woods story has raised some interesting questions. No, not about the World’s Most Wonderful Golfer’s personal life. Not even about who will be the next biggest thing on the Tour.
No, the big question is why so many brands were paying so much to link themselves to Woods.
Monday evening’s revelation was that Swiss watch-maker Tag Heuer was going to “assess its relationship” with Woods. This might have come as a shock if I had ever even known that Woods did endorsements for Tag Heuer.
It’s not that I haven’t occasionally ogled some of the company’s watches while killing time in a fancy store. They’re truly beautiful timepieces. If I had a need to flash a gigantic chunk of stainless steel on my wrist, or to tell time underwater, and if I was fabulously wealthy, I might well own a Tag Heuer today. But not because of Tiger Woods.
Nor will I be wearing a fancy watch of that brand in the future. Also not because of Tiger Woods.
Presumably almost everyone smart enough to have enough money to pay thousands of dollars for a watch would also be smart enough to know that Woods was getting paid to endorse those watches. Sure, there might be a few rich fools willing to part with their money on such slim grounds, but I have to believe that most Tag Heuer customers buy one because it looks good or works well. I just can’t see them saying, even to themselves, “My watch is just like Tiger’s.”
Same with some of the other brands Tiger worked for. The first one to dump Tiger was Accenture. I have a dim recollection of seeing Woods featured in Accenture ads somewhere, but they sure didn’t make me want to run out and hire Accenture. Until this week, I didn’t even know what the company did. Actually, I still don’t.
Were there really big-time business people out there hiring the multi-national consulting company because it had paid Tiger Woods to be a pitchman? Say it isn’t so.
Of course, it turns out that Tiger has pitched all sorts of consumer goods, too: Nike, Gatorade, AT&T. I have yet to consider Tiger’s opinion in buying athletic shoes. Do they fit? Very important. Can I afford them? Also important. Does Tiger like them? Just don’t care.
If I am wrong, and Tiger’s association really has sold a lot of sports drinks and phone calls, then I’m really scared. I mean, sure, we’re a consumer society. Buying stuff, and thinking about buying stuff, is what lots of Americans do for entertainment. But actually shell out money because a golfer says so? If that’s the case, we’re not only a consumer society, we’re a stupid society.
Some commentators seem to think that the gigantic trauma that all these sponsors feel about being hooked up with an imperfect person is going to change the world of sponsorship advertising forever. And maybe that would be a very good thing, if it meant that fewer people were making their purchasing decisions based on a wink and a nod from a highly paid celebrity whose only demonstrated ability is swinging a golf club and looking good while doing it.
And when the conversation turns to “what was Tiger thinking when he …,” it might be a good time for anyone who bought a Tiger-endorsed products to ask himself, “What was I thinking?”
Journal publisher Dave Churchill’s column runs on Wednesdays.
