Marketers Cheer Tiger Woods' Return

Advertising
Marketers Cheer Tiger Woods's Return
By Suzanne Vranica
957 words
25 February 2009
The Wall Street Journal
B1
English
(Copyright (c) 2009, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Tiger Woods is returning to golf after an eight-month hiatus, and a gaggle of marketers is looking for a boost from the comeback of the endorsement king.

Gatorade, which has had a formal relationship with Mr. Woods since 2007, is set to run a print ad in Sports Illustrated featuring a fan in the gallery holding up a homemade sign that reads: "Welcome Back Tiger."

The ad hits newsstands Wednesday, to coincide with Mr. Woods's triumphal return, which starts with the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. The PepsiCo sports beverage is planning to relaunch its Tiger Focus drink in the coming weeks.

"Professional golf without Tiger Woods is like a Hollywood blockbuster without a leading man," said Jeff Urban, a Gatorade senior vice president of sports marketing, in a statement.

A knee injury that required major surgery forced Mr. Woods to take a break from golf in June, shortly after his nail-biting defeat of Rocco Mediate during the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. Since then, TV ratings for golf have plunged, according to Nielsen, and many companies have been left trying to figure out how best to market their wares with the sport's biggest star absent from the game.

During his time away, many advertisers, including sports-apparel maker Nike, continued to use Mr. Woods or his image in their marketing. But the average number of viewers who watched network broadcasts of eight golf tournaments without Mr. Woods dropped 47% compared with the previous year, when Mr. Woods was playing, according to Nielsen.

With his return this week, media outlets are working overtime to leverage the buzz. "The Golf Channel and NBC are actively trying to monetize the return of Mr. Woods," says Sam Sussman, director of sports activation at Starcom, a media-buying firm owned by Publicis Groupe. "Tiger's return is a much-needed distraction from the tough economic pressure the PGA and others are facing."

Indeed, General Electric's NBC wasted no time in publicizing Mr. Woods's return, broadcasting a special promotional spot just hours after the golfer announced last Thursday that he planned to compete in the WGC-Accenture tournament. Since then, the network, which will air the final rounds of the tournament this weekend, has shown little let-up.

Mr. Woods has been the top-earning American athlete on Sports Illustrated's Fortunate 50 list for several years, raking in about $128 million annually from salary, winnings, endorsements and appearances. He is the front man for a long list of marketers, including watch maker Tag Heuer, consulting firm Accenture and Nike. Sports Illustrated estimates that Mr. Woods has earned close to $800 million on and off the course over his 13-year career and should become the first billion-dollar athlete in the next two years.

So, marketers are trying to make up for lost time. Tag Heuer, which is owned by French luxury-goods giant LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is kicking off a direct mail and billboard campaign next week to promote a sweepstakes offering consumers the chance to play golf with Mr. Woods. Tag Heuer has had a deal with Mr. Woods since 2002.

Nike is set to launch a spot Wednesday on TV networks like Walt Disney's ESPN and the Golf Channel, which will air the first rounds of the WGC-Accenture tournament. "We knew when Tiger returned it would be a big, if not the biggest, sports story of the year," says Cindy Davis, president of Nike Golf. "We wanted to capitalize on that."

The new Nike ad features golfers, including Stewart Cink and Trevor Immelman, soaking up the limelight in Mr. Woods's absence, as the Lesley Gore song "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" plays in the background. The golfers are swarmed by bikini-clad women demanding autographs, make red-carpet appearances and land on the cover of golf magazines. Then, Mr. Woods enters, and the party's over. The ad was crafted by Wieden + Kennedy.

Mr. Woods's return couldn't come at a more opportune time. The recession has already taken a bite out of the sports-marketing world. North American companies are expected to increase spending on sports, arts, cause and entertainment marketing by just 2.2% to $16.97 billion this year, according to IEG, a WPP-owned company that tracks sponsorship deals. That would be the weakest growth rate in 24 years. Last year, such spending rose 11% to $16.61 billion.

Advertising executives who specialize in sports marketing believe that golf could be particularly vulnerable to the slump because the sport is heavily dependant on ads and sponsorships from automotive and financial-services firms, both in crisis.

Even Mr. Woods isn't immune from the downturn. Last year, General Motors ended its longtime deal with the golfer, who it tapped in 2000 to promote its Buick brand. But he recently signed a deal with AT&T.

Product marketers aren't the only ones trying to make a buck on the hoopla. PGATour.com has launched "Tiger Returns," a specially designed Web site that will provide hole-by-hole video coverage of this week's tournament. The site will feature nearly a dozen online exclusives, including a live blog on Mr. Woods's practice rounds, complete with video highlights and a live tournament-bracket scoring feature.

PGATour.com, which is run by Time Warner's Turner Sports unit, hasn't sold advertising specifically tied to Mr. Woods's return, but it expects a boost in traffic for the site's current advertisers, including FedEx and Buick.