Can Tiger Woods Still Walk on Water?
Posted by Jaci Russo
Since 1978, when Tiger, 2, appeared on The Mike Douglas Show and putted against Bob Hope, he has to some degree or another lived in the public spotlight. For most of the past 30 years, he has broken records and grown as both a professional player and a tried and true performer. He actually seemed to be able to walk on water.
I have heard golfers talk about what makes Tiger so great. Usually they are remembering some wild shot that put him way off course and what makes him the-best-that-ever-played is his ability to recover. It’s not his consistency - he’s all over the place - it’s his recovery.
That’s what made this ad for Accenture so strong.
Accenture
So the question for Tiger Woods is, “What will you do next?”. The world is watching and waiting to see how he recovers from his “transgression”. How will his major sponsors respond? How will his loyal fans? What about his wife?
There have been hundreds (if not thousands) of news stories, articles and blog posts on the subject. Talk radio and sports radio have analyzed the story from both an ethical and an economic angle. There are 17,200,000 entries when you google “Tiger Woods Affair”. I would believe that two weeks ago that same search probably would have turned up only a few thousand as it related to his legal affairs (and not extramarital ones).
So how does this damage the brand? What do the sponsors do next? Why didn’t his crises communication team get in front of the story faster and better?
Just as in golf, I would imagine that Tiger will be able to hit a miracle shot to get him out of the rough and back on the green - but should he be able to? For all of the outcry in blog posts about this being his personal life and his sponsorships are based solely on his golf performance, I wonder if that is how it should be.
Don’t we want our role models to be examples? Isn’t that what the sponsor is buying for his borrowed glory?
