It was always going to be about brand image. And endorsements.
A new Nike commercial went on air a day before Tiger Woods made his return to professional golf at the Augusta Masters, after a five month break following the outbreak of a scandal involving his personal life. In the interim, many sponsors — Accenture, AT&T and PepsiCo’s Gatorade — distanced themselves from the onetime most marketable athlete. Not Nike, though. For the shoes and sports goods maker, Woods is too big to fail, like some of those big Wall Street financial houses. So the company has made a valiant effort to redeem Brand Woods, though at considerable risk to its own image.
The commercial is creepy. It is a black-and-white video showing a droopy-eyed Woods looking into the camera. He is still, only the eyelids move. He looks contrite, as the disembodied voice of his dead father, Earl, plays in the background.
The commercial does not present Woods as a golfer. And it sure as hell won’t sell shoes. It does not even pretend to talk about the quality of Nike shoes, or anything else the company sells. “Tiger, I am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was, I want to find out what your feelings were, and ... did you learn anything?” his father asks.
It is Woods asking for forgiveness, and Nike hoping he gets it. They can be forgiven for assuming that it would work, given that many Americans have of late begun to talk about the importance of the family. (However, the way they talk makes one wonder if they are making a humongous effort to love their families.)
Nike is a brand that has always championed the virtue, strength and heroism of athletes. Woods fitted it well because he had managed to sustain just that kind of image. But this attempt to recapture the success of the partnership may come across as valiant, but also desperate. Even the Americans may be able to see through it. Patrick Hruby, a freelance writer, has already done a compilation of Earl Woods’ various statements. One of them, made to Golf Digest in 2004, said: “I taught this to Tiger at a very young age, and to this day he's incapable of lying. He may not give you a full answer, but he never lies. The one time Tiger lied as a boy, he got physically ill.” We all know how true that is, don’t we?
The thing is, if you are contrite, you hardly show it in front of a television camera, with the frame dominated by the swoosh of a famous brand, and release it for millions of viewers. You do it in your quiet moments. After all, Woods does not really owe an apology to the world. A golfer’s job is to win, not be a role model to anyone’s kid. What he does in his personal life is his business. Unless it gets linked to big business.
