The Fallen Tiger

Poor Tiger.

After all the things that happened recently: the car incident, the transgressions, the fall from grace, the indefinite leave, now one of his major sponsors has dropped him: http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/news/story?id=4739219

Gillette is also starting to phase him out but his other sponsors including Electronic Arts, Tag Heuer, AT&T, Nike, Golf Digest and Gatorade are sticking with him. While I could say it sucks to be Tiger right now, I realized that he has 11 remaining sponsors and that’s 11 more than what I have.

The problem with his ads is that all of his taglines now have double entendre especially considering that over a dozen women have claimed to play a few holes with Tiger (feel free to replace this with your own Tiger joke).

Case in point:


Really, is it in you?


Tiger took it literally.


If Tiger was indeed hooking up with a lot of women and they all claim he was an excellent lover, an ad that measures something just douses the fire with gasoline.

and my personal favorite:

I wonder what those 10 tips are...

I guess it was a logical move to drop him as a brand image since:
1. We can’t really expect a golfer to endorse something if he’s not out there playing.
2. He isn’t the same old dominating Tiger.
3. They already had him for the last couple of years, which means it’s time for a change!

Replacing him won’t be easy though since he’s virtually plastered all over the place. You could replace him with a basic logo or a tag line but that’s boring and that’s just bad for marketing. I think they should look for another spokesperson. Here are my suggestions on who they can get:

Adam Lambert

Background: American Idol runner up. He's new in the scene. In baseball terms, he’s a prospect, an extremely risky prospect. He does draw attention though. Any publicity is good publicity I guess.

Tag line: High Performance Solutions: For Your Entertainment!

Downside: Controversial ads. Imagine being in a meeting with a client – “Hi! I’m Arn from this company being represented by a guy who shoved another guy to his yagabadoodles on national TV”.

Manny Villar

Background: 2010 presidential candidate. He’s already everywhere. There are infomercials of him helping OFW’s, helping the poor, reminding everyone that he grew up from a poor family, fighting with our troops in Mindanao, sang “I Have Nothing” on Oprah and started a youth group aimed at diverting students away from street gangs, earning him an award on CNN. Uh oh, sarcasm meter just blew up.

Tag line:
Akala mo conyo yun pala ka-email mo
Akala mo walang alam yun pala lead mo
Akala mo trapo yun pala ka-project mo
Akala mo BPG yun pala CPG

Downside: After all the money thrown into marketing, he’s still at 20% in recent surveys.

Piolo

Background: Local actor / model with chiseled abs and straight teeth. Makes the ladies go: “aaaaaaayyyyyy Piooooooolloooooooooooo!”. Makes the men go “Sus, bading yan.”

Tag line: No tag line. His ad would always just be him without a shirt on (and maybe a badge).

Seriously though, not counting his Belo ads, in what other ad was it really necessary for him to be shirtless?

Downside: Imagine this memo from HR – “Please wait while we automatically download the new Piolo 2010 summer collection Windows screensaver to your machine”. While this would surely be ok with the ladies, I’d be very disturbed and I’ll end up typing and moving my mouse all day to ensure that I won’t be idle for 5 minutes. Thank goodness they didn’t go with DingDong.

Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao

Background: The only boxer to win seven titles in… ugh, I’m sure you’ve heard that a million times already. He’s a marketing juggernaut who can sell anything (and comes with a thousand Pacquiao jokes). Heck, he can even sell baby diapers if he wanted to. Just ask him to take off his shirt, do a boxing pose and hang something around him. He’s a winner and a champion, pretty much like the guy they got rid recently.

Tag line: Hay sulusyon dilebered… you know. Nak awt ang prublema nyo sa ay-te.

Downside: Besides the terrible tag line, he only has one or two matches left in him and he’s entering politics. He also has his own share of transgressions, pretty much like the guy they got rid recently.