Tiger Woods.  Here’s more proof that tying your company brand to a celebrity brand can be like navigating ocean waters.  Everything is blue skies and smooth sailing until a perfect storm hits.  For Woods and the companies that have banked on him, banked cash because of him and bank-rolled his alleged antics, the waters can be treacherous and costly.  While most people aren’t looking at Nike and saying, “I won’t buy a pair of Nike shoes because Tiger Woods is endorsing them,” it’s not a stretch for most people to have a laugh when they see an ad with Tiger and the slogan, “Just Do It.”  See, that seems to be the alleged problem with Tiger.  He took those words to heart with too many people, a little too often.

So that is the risk.  Literally billions of dollars of brand equity tied up in a powerful, genius, heart-based, magical line, like “Just Do It” that now is the punch line of a joke on Jay Leno.  It’s really quite sad…for the company…and for the followers who lives have been changed for the better by the words “Just Do It” applied to all kinds of positive leaps in life.  Will the damage be permanent?  Hard to say.  The longer the news about Tiger trickles out, the worse it will be.  And since there’s no George W. Bush to keep comedians swimming in material anymore, Tiger is like chum to hungry sharks.

What’s a company to do?  Certainly there is every advantage to hooking your wagon to celebrities; after all, we live in a world that does what celebrities do.  We watch them intently and mimic them.  Who says America doesn’t have royalty?  But at least the real Royals keep their dirty laundry within the confines of the palace as much as they can.  Sure a scandal leaks out now and then, but it’s not like American royalty.  Because as much as we admire them, it seems people can’t get enough of the news when they fall.  And there is little forgiveness…until they enter rehab and tear up on Oprah.  What’s wrong with us?!

But back to my question: What is a company to do?  The answer is, there’s not much a company can do to prevent their brand gamble from going bust.  Sure they can write all kinds of clauses into legal agreements to try to prevent brand breaches and they can fully vet the personalities they are staking their brand on, but none of that really matters.  It just makes the board of directors sleep better at night.  The reality is the company can do nothing.  It’s really up to the celebrity to have integrity in their own personal brand and in their own self.

So here’s my directive to any celebrity who will listen:  Let’s get real, if you have no self control when it comes to any aspect of life that is considered socially unacceptable, don’t do endorsement deals. That means if you know you have a drug habit, a sex obsession, or can’t seem to stay out of fist fights, just to name a few, make money some other way.  If you want to mess with your life, it’s your life.  But when you mess with a brand, you mess with a promise.  And that affects a lot more people than just you.  If all the allegations prove to be true, Tiger, you broke more than a promise to your wife. You broke a promise to the world.

Filed under: Branding by Kathy Heasley
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