The Brand Man Speaks

Reebok and FTC settle false sneaker claim: Consumers to get back $25M

Surprising news release today:

"Reebok agreed to pay $25 million to resolve government allegations that the sneaker maker deceptively claimed its so-called toning shoes helped strengthen leg and buttock muscles." Reebok cannot advertise any such claims going forward. Here's more:

"The settlement covers advertising starting in 2009 for Reebok's EasyTone walking shoes and flip flops and RunTone running shoes. The agency said the ads made unsupported claims that walking in EasyTone footwear was "proven" to tone buttocks 28 percent more than other sneakers and build calf muscles by 11 percent more".

This segment of the athletic shoe business experienced fast growth after Sketchers introduced a similar type of shoe but did not make the same extreme results claims Reebok did in its effort to sell a "superior" positioning to the public. Shoes claiming to deliver such results played into consumers desires to get their bodies into better shape with the least amount of effort (and dieting) possible.

To the best of my knowledge, no athletic footwear company has made such a medical like claim in recent times and this probably represents the biggest call out of an athletic shoe company by a government action ever.

Reebok has struggled in recent years to find a positioning for its product line. After years of being a major competitor to Nike its business slipped dramatically as Nike positioned itself as the serious athletes (men and women) shoe line and Reebok championed primarily less active women. Reebok is owned by Adidas.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

The Brand Man Speaks launches "@elitalks" on twitter for current updates on marketing news

Beginning today, The Brand Man Speaks launches its first twitter account @elitalks to provide its readers with faster more current and sometimes of the moment comments on what's happening in our world of consumption.

Using twitter for its greatest strengths, @elitalks will comment on news, rumors and information as it happens/surfaces that sparks a Brand Man response or reaction.

Please sign up for my twitter account.

Thanks

Eli

Nike jumps gun with launch of "soulful", "what did you learn?" Tiger Woods Ad

I was stunned to read about and then see a new (and ill-timed)  TV commercial for Nike and Tiger Woods. The ad which shows a "soulful" supposedly remorseful Tiger Woods dressed head to (likely) toe in Nike logo'd apparel uses the voice-over of what supposedly is his father having a one-way chat with Tiger about his behaviors inquiring what did he learn from the experiences.

View Ad Here

First, the timing seems odd. The public has not stated or indicated it is ready to accept Woods back under any conditions, certainly not as Nike brand spokesperson. He hasn't performed notably on the course yet to merit promoting him in any way shape or form. Second, new rumors are swirling about additional affairs and unacceptable behaviors only making this ad launch seem too early and foolish.

It almost seems as if Nike felt compelled to finally do something to "defend" their brand star and couldn't wait any longer. If anything, this ad makes me want to take a step back and view Nike as desperate and so money greedy that just as I was planning to buy a new pair of cross-training shoes from them, I decided to look to another "smarter" brand. I was actually disgusted seeing this ad and quite simply see it in poor taste and not doing much for helping Tiger move forward towards any kind of redemption with the public.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Tiger Woods's pre Masters performance (off the course) may get him an Oscar

So says Tim Dahlberg of the Associated Press...an Oscar for this winning performance in front of a large number of reporters yesterday.

I watched replays of his interview and felt, to some degree, that this was the first time since the "incident" in Windermere, FL last Thanksgiving that Woods appeared to be the least bit sincere. The delivery was more real and less rehearsed. He answered real questions...although he was still holding back where ever he wished but he did give the graveling media a few tidbits of info not previously released. I just wished his handlers had done less "handling and controlling" when this first occurred and he might be in a far better position today then he is.

To a brand marketer such as myself, many readers are asking, "will sponsors come back now?". "is he marketable again?"

I think like many incidents similar to this among the rich and famous, some people will forgive and some will not. I do think that this performance was so good, many on the fence are probably more likely to finally go back to being Tiger (on the course) fans and forgive him. But it is really up to him and his performance at Augusta which will determine his fate. If he pulls out a miracle win, lots of people may find themselves back in his corner because they won't be able to help themselves. He is just so good a golfer and that was what the stir was about from the get go.

Although various mistresses aren't being quiet...so the story isn't over....and there doesn't seem to be a fat lady to sing here...not yet at least.

The bottom line is, he is far from being out of the woods, PUN INTENDED....and sponsors will likely be very cautious for some time to come. With Elin his wife, staying out of the picture for time to come, he still looks like the bad boy and not yet the "committed to my family" man he preaches.

If he was really bold he would announce that from any sponsor that came back to support him, he would donate 100% of his fees to a host of unsupported but important charities....heck, I would like him to take all his NIke money and donate it for the next five years to charity. Now, that would get folks to notice since money and fame create the entitlement in the first place.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Luxury Watch maker Tag Heuer drops Tiger Woods as endorser

As expected luxury watch maker Tag Heuer has announced it will drop its alliance with now disgraced professional golf phenom Tiger Woods. The company will not be using any image of the golfer in its holiday ads or any ads for the foreseeable future.

Tag Heuer follows Gillette and accounting consultancy Accenture who have in one way or another dropped Woods from their campaigns.

The major hold-out so far is Nike which has the most at stake in this gamble. As reported in numerous retail news stories in the media most Tiger Woods merchandise is being sold at discounted or clearance prices as consumers, especially women, shun the golfer's apparel because of his lies deceit and infidelity.

I believe ultimately Nike is going to have to take a stand by dropping the use of Tiger's image in its stores and by reducing the displays of Tiger's logo'd apparel from main view in its stores. As this saga continues to play out with no honest information forthcoming, Nike will be hard pressed to stand by and wait. If more negative information surfaces the damage will be great to them. This is especially true because they bank on Woods' overall image to enhance the total Nike brand not just Tiger Woods branded clothing.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Tiger woods: This brand in free-fall may significantly impact sports endorsements in the future: Update: Gillette and Accenture put use of Tiger officially in phase out mode

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED. SEE BOTTOM FOR DETAILS

Nearly two weeks after the 2:30AM car crash that has led to the acknowledgment of infidelity by the world's richest Golfer and best known athlete, Tiger Woods, we still don't fully know what happened to cause this to become the most notable celebrity misstep in years maybe decades.

What I do know is that the damage is significant and the Tiger Woods Billion Dollar brand is in free-fall. His agents and handlers are of course saying any loss of endorsements is pre-mature but I'll bet senior marketing management and lawyers at Tag Heuer, AT&T, NIke, Accenture, Gillette among others are up sleepless nights trying to figure out how to manage this PR disaster and discern whether or not they can can him. (I'll bet GMs decision to drop Tiger last year as an endorser of the Buick line because of financial difficulties at the automaker is heralded as "brilliant" somewhere inside that company).

Tiger announced today that he is leaving the game of golf "indefinitely" to figure out his life. A little late for that huh? You should have done some figuring before Thanksgiving and leaving all those emails and voice mails. Was Tiger so naive to think none of these women wouldn't go public for big money?

One TV pundit I saw insisted that he "knew" the contracts with Tiger were "ironclad" and nothing could force sponsors to stop paying him. I find that hard to believe. Virtually all endorsement contracts I have seen or have worked on in my career always had a back door out clause if the celebrity failed to perform or caused the sponsor's company or brand harm by his actions. Even if this were true..that all deals were unbreakable....it doesn't stop sponsors from not using him in their ads (I think all endorsement uses of TW have been stopped to my knowledge as of this point) and I do not expect them to use him in anyway for an indefinite period of time.

Wood's story continues to get worse and the lack of information keeps the story top news and only causes more financial harm. He is the butt of late night comedians and the internet is on fire with "have you heard" jokes about Tiger. Certainly no longer the perfect sports role model.

Speaking of which, because Tiger Woods was the single largest sports endorsement brand on the planet (as far as I know) this completely unexpected incident will certainly make all companies that use celebrities, especially sports stars re-evaluate hiring these folks in the first place. If Tiger can fall so hard and fast it proves the risk/return is becoming too great. My understanding is more companies are sponsoring sports teams or events rather than specific performers to reach their targets with far less risk. It is clearly possible the fall out from Tiger Woods infidelity may change an entire industry permanently. 

The Tiger story goes way deeper. It impacts Television sports, ratings and revenues. Tiger helped build this sport into a more democratic one bringing millions of new fans and dollars to the industry of Professional Golf. When he last left the game for medical reasons, TV viewership dropped dramatically as did ad revenues. This will happen again, except, if and when Tiger does return to televised golf, the ratings will likely soar, at least in the short term and golf on TV will be hot again. It does remain a serious question: Might Tiger give up the game permanently to find "religion, healing, forgiveness and family"?

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

UPDATE: As of late today, both Gillette and accounting consultancy Accenture have announced they will put their marketing efforts behind Tiger Woods on hold indefinitely with Gillette indicating it will phase out use of the golf phenon relatively quickly. $$$ signs are dropping. I'm expecting more fallout within days. Word also has it that Tiger's yacht "Privacy" docked at Miami Beach Marina is being prepped for departure. Access to its dock has been restricted/keys changed even name on boat is being covered up. Privacy at sea shortly? Likely

Spirit Airlines "uses" Tiger Woods to sell cheap tickets; in bad taste?

I just came across the new TV ad for Spirit Airlines promoting their usual low low no frills fares. The unusual element is they are "using" the Tiger Woods car crash in an animated way to sell low fares titled "Eye of the Tiger".

In bad taste or is Tiger open for such abuse of sorts?

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Brand "Tiger Woods" put to its biggest challenge; Will sponsors stay on or bail?

The recent car "incident" involving the biggest richest branded athlete Tiger Woods is the first real test of the golfing greats ability to manage his brand (worth billions) under extreme stress beyond the course.

Brand Tiger Woods has become the biggest athlete brand in history primarily due to his squeaky clean beyond reproach family man/super athlete identity. There have always been rumors here and there about women coming on to Tiger...quite frankly I am amazed he hasn't been the target of more damaging rumors earlier kudos to his extremely well oiled PR and management machine.

But now comes the real test. Had the incident occurred during "normal" hours of the day or even evening I would bet silence without deviating from "full speed ahead" would have made this matter disappear and Tiger would be completely unscathed. However, the time frame of 2:30AM (or thereabouts) really won't allow this matter to be just ignore and pushed aside. Everyone knows it was a very odd hour to be out and about and to be "unnerved" (for a guy with nerves of steel) enough to smash his SUV leaving him unconscious within a few feet of his own home spells big trouble.

Tiger is going to have to come clean one way or another with the public or at least with authorities. Unwillingness to talk in our culture equals hiding something.

A brand like Tiger's worth more than 1 Billion Dollars has a lot to lose so his crisis management team must not make any mistakes.

As with other athletes, sponsors have so far said they are behind their man. However, I believe, many will reduce their use of Tiger, even eliminate it, for a period of time hoping for a positive resolution soon. The longer nothing is said and public opinion creates its own spin on the events, the more damage to the brand and the more likely sponsors are going to suspend their relationship with him or even drop him altogether.

Since Tiger was so "clean" this event only magnifies the circumstances and every move is being watched and monitored by the press and public alike. We, the public, want to believe in his fairy-tale life and career and unlike some other athletes or entertainers who get into trouble, we really do want everything to be ok with Tiger and for him to still be the gold standard among athlete/celebrities. If anything, we can accept that he is human, as long as we are told some of the truth versus nothing that is believable right now.

One thing in his favor; he didn't (it appears so far) do anything illegal just possibly (if rumors pan out about an affair) something questionable to negatively impact his perfect very moral family values posture.

Come Clean Now Tiger, show us you are human, seek forgiveness and get back to what you do oh so very very well...play golf.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Lack of Civility cuts across occupation, race and political affiliation...is the end of the empire near?

I just felt compelled to write a short piece on what appears to me and many others to be an rapidly approaching end of any type of civility in this country....maybe the world....that reminds one of the decline of the Roman Empire....

Between Serena's  unsportsmanlike/unladylike behavior at the US Open that cost her the match, Kanye West's selfish and inflated ego stage stealing from Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Awards to Congressman Joe Wilson's outrageous outburst during a Presidential speech to congress, ("You lie")....what has become of us, our cultural...more importantly our future? We are in deep trouble and it doesn't look too promising for things to get better.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Super Bowl Ads 2009; Not very super: Pretty weak and boring

Like many millions of folks, including fellow marketeers, I spent a good part of Super Bowl 2009 watching the ads looking for memorable creative that would be worthy of $3 Million per spot.

Unfortunately folks, most ads were dull, boring, meaningless, stupid and certainly not memorable. If you are going to spend all that money to place a commercial in the Super Bowl, at least ensure the ad is one that will entertain and hopefully influence. In  my opinion, a lot of companies wasted a lot of money last night.

I found myself wondering, "what message are they trying to get across here?" in most cases and saying out loud, "that wasn't the least bit funny". By the end of the game, I had a very hard time remembering what brands had been advertised.

I feel the Bridgestone Tire ads (yes I do remember the brand) were the most "huh?" ads for me...seemingly disjointed and unclear what their message was all about. I certainly have no idea why I would want to buy that brand of tire.

The Cola wars are back but I didn't develop any partiality to one brand over another because of their ads.

Doritos? Awful just like the product in my opinion.

Budweiser needs to find a new ad agency.

A few were somewhat memorable.

The E-Trade talking baby is back with a friend and always gets a chuckle out of me. I enjoy this creative and think it is memorable stuff.

Pedigree Pet Food did a splendid job promoting animal adoptions showing why it is better to adopt a dog than many other (wild) pets. (Full disclosure: I provided expert commentary about this ad prior to its airing for a major media source...no pay...but I was already positively predisposed to the creative.)

Jason Statham continued his James Bondesque activities showing Audi's new A6 is one helluva fast car. I love the Transporter movie franchise I must admit. I think I might actually buy an Audi next time I have enough money to buy a new car, (if the economy improves).

Monster.com's "moose-head" ad was cute and clearly calls out that it is time to find a new job...if there are any out there......

The surprise hit for me was Cash4Gold.com. The late night direct response advertiser was "allowed" to buy space usually reserved for the prestigious consumer products/services brands because the economy is so weak and NBC had lots of unsold inventory. The bottom feeder advertiser used Ed McMahon and MC Hammer especially well to promote their mail-in gold redemption for cash service. It was surprisingly good creative that wasn't so cheesy as I would have thought and did a great job of message delivery with humor.

Finally, but it was an in-house ad for NBC's Hulu online service, Alex Baldwin did a nice "30 Rock" styled ad for the website that was extremely well-done and memorable.

What did you think? Share your thoughts.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli