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Nike uses the voice of Tiger Woods' late father, Earl, in a TV ad to confront his public disgrace as a silent Tiger somberly listens.
What to do with Tiger? This has been many sponsors' conundrum over the last few months as sex scandal erupted and just won't stop. Frankly, I find it all a bit amusing (and educational) to watch how the world's-most-well-paid-athlete's sponsors are handling this PR crisis.
Those who have folded under pressure? Accenture, AT&T, and Gatorade.
Those to stick with him? For now, Tag Heuer and Nike.
The latter, recently posted a notably earnest response to Tiger's infidelity and new-found [negative] attention. The above TV commercial offers neither an excuse for the athlete nor does it pretend like nothing has happened. What it does do is directly address his disgrace—by none other than Tiger's own deceased dad—and force the viewer to look at the 32 year-old as a human who has erred. Earl Wood's voice perfectly captures the unconditional quality of parental love, regret and forgiveness for his prodigal son. And as Earl speaks, it eerily anthropomorphizes Nike's brand breaking their silence with a tone of forgiveness toward their most valuable golf asset and public relations disappointment.
Poll Source: Huffington Post
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Thoughtshaker Folks said on April 12, 2010 at 2:36 PM
Interesting public opinion feedback reported The New York Times: April 11, 2010
...On Wednesday, the day before the Masters began, Mr. Woods’s online reputation stood at 51 percent positive and 49 percent negative, Zeta reported. On Friday, the positive figure had soared to 69 percent and the negative had fallen to 31 percent.
The 69 percent is still a far cry from the 91 percent positive rating that Mr. Woods enjoyed in the Zeta data before the scandal.
Looking at words or terms used online to describe Mr. Woods, Zeta found that those in use a month ago, like “lie/lied/liar,” “cheat” and “scandal,” had given way by Friday to “win,” “performance” and “dominant/dominate.”
As for the Nike commercial, it helped the Nike brand online, the Zeta data indicated. The company’s positive ratings, which had recently hovered in the range of 68 to 73 percent, soared to 83 percent after the spot began running.
And as of Friday morning, the volume of posts online about Nike had increased by more than 270 percent, the data showed, making Nike more buzzed-about than any retailer.