Since when have fireman staggered, soot-covered, out of burning buildings apologizing for being so cliché.
I'd say, since right around the time ESPN started replaying games and calling them "Instant Classics." Why can't it just be a "that great game yesterday"?
And in this self-conscious, prepackaged environment, it makes perfect sense for a company with made-up corporate name (Accenturate the positive!) to announce—in the disembodied third person—that its chief spokesman "is no longer the right representative for its advertising."
Wait. Doesn't everybody who consumes that announcement already know full well that a professional golfer was never the right representative of a business consultancy, any more than a TV actor has any actual credibility on the subject of how to invest our money.
And yet, when Accenture dumped Tiger Woods, we all nodded solemnly and intoned: They had to do it. He just doesn't have any credibility anymore.
Suddenly, we have decided, because he is a skirt-chaser, the golf pro doesn't have any credibility to tell us what consultancy to hire.
These days, we're the suckers and the hucksters both.
It's a hell of a lot of work, and it doesn't pay well.
I think the reason Tiger was an effective pitchman had very little to do with his golf skills and a lot to do with the juxtaposition of his high visibility combined with his self-proclaimed self-discipline. Lee Trevino was never as good at golf as Jack, but he was a great spokesman (because he was funny and approachable)…
So, in the case of Tiger, a successful person who got there via self control and persistence makes a good spokesperson.
I think it’s fair to say that his visibility today isn’t as valuable as it was, and his positioning has been undermined by current events. So, both pillars go away.
You can make money from cliches, but when the cliches stop being ‘true’, expect not to make money from them, no?
Seth, no doubt Woods is not the proposition he was two weeks ago, nothing like it.
But what baloney we willingly buy from these spokespeople. It was one thing when Ronny Reagan was selling Chesterfield cigarettes; he was as big an authority as anybody.
But there’s something hilariously absurd about a public buying business consulting from Tiger Woods or investment advice from Sam Waterston–and then suavely pursing its lips and declaring that the golfer or actor aren’t “credible” anymore.
My point is, THEY WERE NEVER CREDIBLE. We were, quite willingly, credulous.
What corporation doesn’t have a made up name? Are corporate names supposed to be hand picked from corporate name trees in Florida, or strip mined in the great corporate name deposits of the Kalahari desert?
Mike, how about real things:
International Business Machines.
Or real people:
Ford.
Or real concepts:
The Container Store.
Or real fruits: Apple.
International Harvester. Oh, wait, I mean “Navistar.”
BTW, I play a doctor on TV.
Diane, thanks for two references I wish I’da laid tongue to.
(Esp. International Harvester vs. Navistar. Gee, let’s trade in the most evocative name in corporate America for the least … and call it BRANDING!)