Woods can Earn His Image on Course

golfsetbase.com / 12-17

 

In the last week, Tiger Woods was involved in a minor car accident and acknowledged adultery and issued his indefinite leave. The world's No. 1 golfer’s squeaky clean image from continent to continent has been tarnished. He was dropped by a major sponsor. All of that, several global brand experts say, will have an effect on what he can persuade the public to buy.

 

 

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"He may never achieve those peaks again that he's done, but he will be a significant sportsman and a significant figure in the world of golf in a few years' time. I have no doubt about it," said Simon Middleton, a British brand consultant. "Nobody just writes people off like that."

 

"People will struggle to look at him as a role model to represent good business decisions," said Julian Stubbs, a global branding expert in Stockholm. "His marketability will definitely change."
"Chinese people are becoming more open toward this kind of scandal," Zeng Zhaohui, a Chinese expert said. "People will like him again if he plays well."

 

Stubbs, who said Woods' wife has become the "shining star" of the saga in Sweden, added that Swedes, too, will eventually move on and accept Woods again.

 

"Swedes as a society are pretty good at forgiving and forgetting," Stubbs said. "Golf is a significant sport here and I actually think depending on what he decides to do and how he handles it, I think he could recover.

 

"I don't think he will ever be quite the same again as a brand, as a marketable brand, but I think he's capable of recovering."

 

Many big-name athletes and leading politicians have overcome the fallout from affairs or alleged affairs, including David Beckham. The former captain of England's national football team was accused of cheating on pop star wife Victoria in 2004 but nothing was ever proven.

 

Comparing what has happened to Woods to what may have happened to Beckham in similar circumstances is a moot point, Middleton said.

"It will have probably had a similar impact, we'd have been similarly horrified," Middleton said, but also noted that the 34-year-old Beckham is closer to the end of his career than the 33-year-old Woods. "The career of elite footballers is shorter inevitably ... and I think therefore the recovery might have been more challenging were it Beckham."

 

Stubbs compared the Woods scandal to the drug allegations that surrounded supermodel Kate Moss in 2005.

 

"The first six months was probably awful for her," Stubbs said. "But she actually came back, in many respects, stronger, earning more money the following year because it actually added a little bit of an edge to her brand."

 

Like Beckham and Moss, Woods is a huge name and a major personality around the world. But that can create other problems in more conservative countries, where adultery is treated as a major crime rather than mere "transgressions," as Woods put it in one of his statements.

 

"The value difference is a factor, but it's not a very big issue here," Zeng said. "I believe the scandal won't be a lethal blow."

 

Stubbs said Japan may be the first place to embrace Woods when the scandal starts to ebb.

 

"They'll still see him as a golfer first," Stubbs said. "I don't think the scandal will have quite had the edge it's had in Western Europe, America, Sweden."

 

But Risa Tanaka, the managing editor of branding magazine Senden Kaigi, said it would take Woods a long time to recover in Japan.

 

"Tiger's value as a commercial icon has plunged, because companies don't like scandals, especially one of that magnitude," Tanaka said. "It would be very difficult for Tiger to recover from the negative image in Japan after the scandal that disturbed many women, who are the main consumption power in this country."

 

Maybe Woods would be better off if he had been born in Europe instead of the United States.

 

"I think if he were a European golfer ... the perspective would be different," Middleton said. "He would be admonished, but I don't think his brand would be in such dire straits as it is now."
 

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