Social insights for successful brands come from real people in real places. Sonny's Cozy Tavern is one of those places. It's like every small-town beer joint across the country. The kind of place where you can learn more in a couple of hours by sitting with the characters at the bar than you could ever hope to learn in a hundred consumer focus groups. Good brands start at Sonny's.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Cultural Morality & Tiger


The book, The Man in The Mirror, speaks to the subject of "Cultural Christianity."  Simply, it's the concept that our culture shapes our beliefs, and Cultural Christians often pick and choose their faith values based on what is convenient or works best for them in a given situation.

For the sake of conversation, Sonny's Cozy Tavern is going to borrow the concept and call it "Cultural Morality" in the case of Tiger Woods and his sponsors.  Tiger is like gold to his sponsors.  Nike built an entire golf empire from the ground up around Tiger.  Buick seems almost cool with Tiger.  I want a Breitling watch just like Tiger.  The PGA Tour would stagger to its knees without Tiger.

Tiger's image was always squeeky clean, almost super human.  Until this week. He hit a tree and a fire hydrant with his Escalade, and the story grew from one of an auto accident to one of "transgressions" with at least three women to date. 

So far, none of Tiger's sponsors have backed out of their very lucrative branding deals.  Many have already come out with statements standing by Tiger.

A case of "Cultural Morality" based on money to be gained by the sponsors?  Would these same sponsors have stood by and maintained brand relationships if it wasn't Tiger -- and they didn't make millions off of him?  You think John Daly would have received the same support?  Butch doubts it, but that's what we're here to discuss.

Cultural Morality or genuine care and loyalty to Tiger?  What do you think?
- Butch
 

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hey Butch,
I don't really watch or care about golf so to me this is just playing out like yet another tiresome powerful dude who can't keep it in his pants. Then I read this and it goes further to sully his image in my mind than a dalliance with a coffee shop girl.
http://bit.ly/8j8395