Update from the Tiger Woods Ad Agency Crisis Management Department

I did a post a while back (Why Wolfgang Puck Should be Stoned to Death and Dismembered) about how celebrities should go about choosing what products to endorse. Obviously, you couldn't write about celebrity endorsements with about discussing Tiger Woods - up until Thanksgiving, one of the most successful product pushing human beings on the planet. When the news broke that Tiger had been screwing a different cocktail waitress just about every time he walked into a hotel room, everyone got misty eyed thinking about how that must feel for his wife and little kids. Not me. I immediately thought, oh my god! what is this going to mean for Deloitte & Touche?!

First off, let me say generally that I have not been weeping over Tiger's corporate sponsors and their potential public relations nightmares. Companies are stupid to make such huge investments in supposedly super-human individuals who are supposed to convince the hoi polloi that they too can become virtual gods if they buy whatever junk the celebrity is hawking. Shame on the companies for getting bent out of shape when their enlisted demi-gods turn out to be just as schmuck-like as the rest of us. And shame, even more, on the rest of mankind for being so retardedly biologically predisposed to thinking that buying whatever junk is being pushed will make us even one iota less schmuck-like.

A lot of people seem to assume that Tiger's screw up is going to mean the end of all of his corporate endorsements. I don't think so. And I think the determining factor will be the underlying message of each particular ad. For ads that are trying to say "we the company are like Tiger," well that's really no good. But for the ads, which are most of them, that are trying to say "you will be like Tiger if you buy our crap," Tiger's banging his way around the globe may not be a bad thing at all.

Accenture has reportedly pulled the plug on Tiger already. They fall into the first category. I have no idea what Accenture actually does (I don't think anyone knows; they're some kind of consulting offshoot of Arthur Anderson), but, judging from their ads, they're apparently supposed to have the laser beam focus, commitment to achieve and clarity under pressure that Tiger has. So then when you re-evaluate Accenture in light of these new developments – start thinking that your Accenture consultant is probably going to spend a few minutes in your office walking you through some business models and then work all afternoon and all night to try to get into your secretary's pants – you might have a bit less confidence that Accenture's services are really what you need. Same analysis for Deloitte & Touche. I haven't heard anything yet about what they're planning to do with their Tiger campaign, but I can't believe they're going conclude that Tiger Woods continues to be the picture perfect poster child for scrupulous accounting practices (in which case, at the very least, walking through airports may become one small notch less irritating).

A few products have unique considerations. Gatorade has discontinued its Tiger Woods sport drink, but claims to have made that decision before the brouhaha. I believe them, mainly because I've tried the Tiger Woods sport drink and it was the nastiest shit I have ever had the displeasure of putting in my mouth. Buick can probably keep Tiger on. Most of its target audience probably still have rabbit ears on their TVs and haven't figured out how to make the transition to digital TV. So they probably haven't even heard the news about Tiger yet.

But almost all of the rest of the products endorsed by Tiger are in the second category – the "buy this and you'll be like Tiger" group. Take Hanes and Gillette, for example. The target demographic for these ads are 100% male. Guys who are (almost by definition) trying to look stronger and younger and sexier. So how will the fact that its spokesman has been busted screwing dozens of young, sexy women affect its message? Uh, you connect the dots. A few minor tweaks to the scripts (i.e. photoshop Tiger into Axe body spray ad and have him say something like "awwwww yeeeeaaah boy, you know what I'm talking about...") and these ads will be ready for prime time. Why did all those cocktail waitresses want to nail tiger in the first place? Why, because of his sexy boxer briefs and incredibly close shave, of course.

Don't hold your breath for the corporate press releases acknowledging all this. But somewhere deep in the bowels of the Tiger Woods wing of the advertising industry corridors of power, someone is making the not-so-ridiculous point that, if your main spokesman turns out to be an irresponsible, adolescent pig, and if your whole advertising regime is based on hawking stuff to people who, deep down, basically dream of acting like irresponsible, adolescent pigs, you might not have such a big crisis after all.

Class Warfare on My Way to Work

The last thing I want to do every morning while riding the subway to work is to ignite a class warfare riot. But I realized one morning last week during my commute that, if everyone on my subway car suddenly banded together into an impromptu posse, dragged me out into the street and beat me to a bloody pulp, I’d have to admit, in between kicks to my broken ribs and lashes across the destroyed flesh of my former face, that they had point. What was I doing to deserve such treatment? Reading a magazine that had this ad on the back cover:

“You never actually own a Patek Philippe. You merely look after it for the next generation.”

The Patek Philippe Annual Calendar 5146G and Calatrava cufflinks advertised here are, respectively, an $18,000 sport watch and a $4,000 pair of gold cufflinks. The story the ad is presumably supposed to convey is something along the lines of this: You are a powerful, powerful man who has arrived at the pinnacle of prestige and power. Your pectoral muscles are flawlessly chiseled, surpassed in beauty only by the impeccable cut of your custom tailored sport jacket. You are not balding even a tiny little bit. Your trophy wife is young and perky. Your dick enormous. Forget just being able to know what time it is. If you buy this watch, you will be transforming your capital into an object that will not only appreciate handsomely over time, but will demonstrate to the world your formidable level of success.

But wait! There’s more! Your personal success is so momentous that it can hardly be contained in a single human body. Thus the need to pass it along to your progeny - your flesh and blood, the fine young man who has been so fortunately endowed with your exquisite genes and an ample portion of your hard working capital. For a member of that next generation, so entitled yet so soft, it’s good to have at least one natural defense – a watch signaling to potential predators that the same $750 an hour lawyer who’s on retainer for dad (defended him during his insider trading suit? maybe brought an eminent domain case so dad could demolish the neighbor’s house on the vineyard to make room for a larger dock?) would have complaints served on said predators within thirty seconds of having laid a finger on junior. Just imagine how priceless the moment will be when you make that special trip to your son’s prep school to pass along your 5146G and Calatrava cufflinks so that he too can look after these items for yet another generation.

It’s enough to warm a man’s heart. Or, on the other hand, if he’s on the subway, possibly enough to make a man decide to get in on the action with the posse that’s kicking the shit out of me in the street.

Most of the people I ride to work with in the morning, myself included, are not merely looking after their watches for the next generation. They’re looking at their watches so that they will know what time it is. So they get to work on time. So they’ll get paid every other week. So they can afford car insurance and dog food. And while there’s nothing wrong with being rich and babysitting cufflinks for future generations, there is something very nauseating about aspiring to such pretention by parading around with an ad like this on the back of your magazine.

Ads are among the most truthful windows into peoples souls. Gazing deeply into a person’s eyes, watching him perform under pressure, talking intimately about his most deeply felt fears and convictions? All good ways of learning about his true inner being. But not nearly as market-tested as an ad. Advertisers understand us better than anyone out there. It’s their business. Ads don’t paint a picture of us as we are, but rather of us as we want to be.

And so, in a way, being moved by a tableau depicting such smug, unabashed douchebagedness is even worse than actually being a douchebag. There are a million reasons a person can be a douchebag – genetics, upbringing, bad day in the office, ring around the collar – and so, when you come across one, you can just write him off. Probably just came out of the box that way. But to want to be, affirmatively aspire to be, get turned on the by idea of being, a douchebag, then, well, good luck with that mob on the subway.

In my defense, the ad above was from the back cover of The Economist magazine. And while, granted, that publication can be a tad bit smug in its worldview, it’s interesting to read and has good commentary on the forces that make the modern world turn. And I read other stuff too. Good literature. Trashy fiction. Biographies. Rolling Stone. Seriously, I’m a well rounded guy. But until The Economist comes up with some other wares to hawk on its back cover, until I can feel confident that my neighbors won’t think that my idols include a douchebag-looking business tycoon and his equally revolting-looking son, I’m going to have to limit where I read it. No more taking the Economist out in public. The risk is just too great. I’ll just stare at the wall on the subway until The Economist comes up with a new idea. And hopefully put off the class warfare revolution to another day.