12-17-2009 ACCENTURE'S UGLY DIVORCE FROM TIGER There are divorces. And then there are divorces... Accenture is going through a very difficult and painful advertising divorce with Tiger Woods, its long-time spokesman over a series of ongoing infidelities (14-15?) by the golfer. Woods became the face of Accenture's advertising in 2003 and was in more than 80% of the company's ads. With an annual ad budget of $50 million in the U.S. alone, that's a lot of Tiger. In the spectrum of a divorce there are several levels. The couple who simply part ways with no hard feelings. And then there is the divorce where a man's clothes are in the front yard and he finds himself in court on a regular basis having his testicles surgically removed. This is the latter. The New York Times (12/17) is reporting that not only is Accenture removing Woods from its Web site, billboards, and such, but the company is also having employees remove any mentions of him from their offices. "Accenture said it did not tell all of its 177,000 worldwide employees to toss their Tiger T-shirts, caps and tchotchkes away," said a spokesman who in reality was saying "We had better not see any Tiger Woods crap in our offices..." �It struck me that they were taking him to the woodshed,� noted one brand expert. There are few things uglier than a corporation scorned.
Copyright 2010 Bottom Line Communications. BLC is a Media News Web site that analyzes media and marketing issues. Please give credit or link to http://www.bottomlinecom.com when using any materials. Click on the FEEDBACK tab to send any media tips/comments/thoughts/ to us. We honor all off-the-record requests and will correct/clarify any information found not to be 100% accurate.
