While some of Tiger Woods’ business patrons have stuck by his side during the current scandal over his admitted infidelities, one high-profile company — Accenture — did not, and Terry Lefton thinks he knows why. “Why was Accenture the first to sever Tiger? Simple: Woods was Accenture’s sole marketing platform,” he explains, writing in sportsbusinessjournal.com. “As Tiger’s only business-to-business corporate patron, Accenture’s surgical removal of Woods is the one we find most intriguing,” he writes. “When a publicly traded company announces anything on a Sunday, you know it’s scurrying.” Lefton says that at first he thought Tiger’s transgressions “would matter less to Accenture than, say, Nike, AT&T or Gatorade. Our rationale was that its B-to-B target would be indifferent to issues of infidelity.” Thus his conclusion that the consulting firm’s sole reliance on Woods as a spokesperson was at the root of the decision.

The problem was underscored by the media platforms selected, Lefton continues. “Sure, there was TV and print, but anyone who travels by air knows the Woods/Accenture ads are ubiquitous in American airports and in many overseas air terminals; those will take months to swap out,” Lefton writes. “So integrated was Woods with Accenture that internal estimates put the cost of unwinding the association in the tens of millions, and it is a process that also will take months.”

Source: Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal

Posted December 29th, 2009 under Intellectual Property Marketing

Write a comment