I had earlier written about my thoughts on Tiger’s impact on golf travel but the question keeps arising. I think the impact on sports marketing in general will be significant. For a moment, reflect back on the marketing programs of two companies; Accenture and Titleist.
Accenture made the decision to connect their brand with what they believed to be a blue chip brand in the form of Tiger Woods. Woods epitomized everything that Accenture wanted to project. Conversely, Titleist, although they have in many cases, unlimited access to the very best golfers in the world never put any single player on a par (pardon the pun) with their brand. We know the Titleist ads with possibly one dozen golfers all cumulatively adding to the perception of Titleist as the premium brand. As a result, if one one player fell from grace, it had minimal, if any impact on Titleist. They certainly did not have to remove and replace an entire marketing strategy because of the actions of one person.
Accenture find themselves in that unenviable position. I still notice Tiger/Accenture ad’s in airports. Long term it would be hard to imagine any corporate CEO embracing the idea of wrapping their brand around a single sports celebrity, regardless of their pedigree. As a result, the relative dollar value of that celebrity brand must surely diminish with a resultant trickle down effect as the coattails that have worked so nicely for many golf professionals on the way up, re-engineer into a parachute on the way down.
About the Author: Gordon Dalgleish is the Co-Founding Director of PerryGolf, the leading provider of international golf vacations. You can find him on Google+
