Issue: Why does bad behavior hurt some brands more than others?
Commentary by: David Vinjamuri

Accenture announced over the weekend that it would sever its relationship with Tiger Woods, who has fronted a major advertising campaign for the consultancy over the past six years.  Nike, on the other hand has reaffirmed support for Woods after his accident and revelations of marital indiscretions.

This advertising blog has never been a great fan of celebrity endorsement.  As the Tiger Woods example illustrates, even the most stable of celebrities may expose a brand to negative attention.  However, celebrities play different roles for different kinds of brands.   As odd as it may sound, Accenture was right to drop Woods while Nike was equally wise in staying with him.

To understand the distinction between the type of endorsement value Tiger Woods has for these two different brands, we must consider the type of associative brand equity Woods transfers to each brand with his endorsement.

Tiger Woods is a world class athlete.  Indeed, winning the U.S. Open in 2008 with a serious knee injury may have been one of the most outstanding athletic achievements of the past decade.  For Nike, Tiger Woods endorsement is an endorsement of direct expertise.  Nike’s brand equity is based on understanding the needs of serious athletes.  The Nike brand values are about commitment and intensity.  In spite of taking a hiatus from golf, Nike has every reason to believe that Tiger will continue to be a serious athlete and a top competitor.  Nike has often successfully maintained association with athletes who have had some degree of personal notoriety because the brand equity it takes from these athletes is related to their dedication, not the conduct of their personal lives.

The Accenture relationship with Tiger Woods is one of the few sponsorship relationships with Woods outside of Nike that we believe has been effective for both parties, as we’ve argued previously. In this campaign, however, Tiger lends the Accenture brand equity through indirect expertise - in this case his focus and judgment.  Thus, when Woods’ judgment becomes suspect it eliminates his value as a brand spokesperson for the Accenture brand.  The past association may indeed hurt the brand in this case.

What’s the brand lesson here?  If you are looking for a spokesperson, try to pick a celebrity who has direct expertise in the problem your brand solves.   The celebrity should be a core user of the brand and someone who is highly credible with other users.  This doesn’t mean that they have to be aspirational.  In 2005, Alka-Seltzer very effectively used the late Peter Boyle (who played the father in the TV sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond”) as a direct expert in indigestion.  Most sufferers would have no interest in becoming the character Boyle was known for.  But an older, overweight cranky man who might have eaten an entire turkey was a credible expert for indigestion relief.

Using celebrities to promote brands is a risky business.  Most endorsements are meaningless and hollow.  But even those which are effective contain risks.  By focusing on direct expertise, brands can at least avoid some of the direct pitfalls of bad celebrity behavior.

Brand: Accenture (consulting services)
Execution: TV & Print
Link: Click Here
Target: C-Level Fortune 1000 Executives
Rating: ** (TV) /**** (Print)
Reviewer: David

Description
Accenture takes a successful print campaign and brings it to television - in a huge way. The campaign has 9 spots. Each spot features Tiger Woods playing golf. Most of them show him making impossible shots using skills that are then compared to skills that Accenture can help companies build through consulting or outsourcing.

What Works
This advertising blog has long been a fan of the print campaign that launched this television campaign. One execution in particular (shown above) has Tiger holding the visor of his cap to look at the lay of the green as he is putting. It is a perfect metaphor for focus and one that the golf-aware CEOs who comprise Accenture’s target audience will understand perfectly at a glance. Targeted print advertising is also a great way to reach these key targets for consulting business.

The television campaign has some funny and memorable moments. It also shows how great athletes, like great businesses do not function on ability alone. In one spot, Tiger’s mental calculations are revealed as he shoots for the green. When the shot bounces off the cup and lands two feet away Tiger exclaims, “I forgot to account for the rotation of the Earth!” It is one of the best moment of the campaigns as it simultaneously makes us laugh and reinforces the branding message for Accenture.

What Doesn’t Work
If this advertising blog believes these spots are so well executed, why do we give the television campaign such low marks? For two reasons:

1. Star Brand drowns out Consulting Brand - Some advertisers seem to forget that when they hire a celebrity to endorse their brand, they are really bringing a second brand into the advertising. The ‘endorser brand’ is effective only when a lasting linkage can be made between the two brands. Accenture is the only business services company using Tiger as a spokesperson. But the reason they are using Tiger is because Accenture customers play golf in large numbers. Which means they also watch golf and other sports. In this capacity (as sports enthusiasts) the more relevant brand linkage for Tiger Woods is Nike. Try as they might, Accenture won’t drive Nike out of the mind of these people - even those CEO’s. There is simply not enough branding to make these spots good for anyone but Tiger Woods.
2. Wasting Money on Wide Distribution Media - We are not sure who invented the idea of business to business companies advertising to hundreds of millions of consumers in order to reach a few thousand, but we are pretty sure that person was not spending his own money. The waste behind these commercials is staggering when you consider that Accenture probably knows the name and home address of every person in the U.S. who might potentially hire them as consultants. The standard response to this is that television allows image-building and enhances the reputation of the advertiser. Really? We would welcome the cold hard quantitative analysts at Accenture to prove that this campaign does anything more than improve top-of-mind brand recognition among their target audience. Given the efficiency of print advertising, conferences, events, word of mouth and other techniques for reaching small, targeted audiences, this expenditure on television shows a shocking disregard for efficiency.

Branding Bottom Line
No wonder those consultants charge so much … it’s the advertising.