Sunday, December 20, 2009

Would Your Brand Tee Off With Tiger Woods?

Is Tiger Woods good for your brand? Before this month almost any brand might have said "yes: to a Tiger Woods endorsement. Today, the answer isn't so clear. Accenture has apparently ended it's Tiger Woods campaign. Nike remains a supporter of Tiger. Gillette has backed off.

So, the question is, how would you determine whether to keep Tiger Woods or dump him? David Vinjamuri of ThirdwayBlog.com writes eloquently about Tiger Woods and celebrity endorsement and I agree with his assessment. Both Accenture and Nike are right. One dumped him, one kept him. Nike is right to kepe Tiger because he represents athleticism and athletic performance. His endorsement is a direct endorsement of the Nike brand vlaue proposition. Accenture had a more difficult decision. Their ad campaign emphasized the ability of Tiger Woods to focus on the challenge and make sound judgements. It's a less direct endorsement of the Accenture brand value proposition. And it certainly reminds the consumer of the recent controversy over Tiger Woods' judgement off the golf course. Read the post by David Vinjamuri - insightful.

Does this define Integrated Marketing?

Integrated Media. I've shared this defintion before, but it's so funny that it's worth sharing again. I first saw this published in Media Magazine:

"integrated agency: n., pl. -cis.(Lat. Integrate, to make whole - integer, complete - (Med. Lat. agentia (agens, effective) 1. An agency that does all the things a regular, ordinary agency does, but with the addition of a superfluous modifier."