Hey! Have you seen this new Tiger Woods TV spot for Nike?
You have? Oh.
Everybody’s weighing in on this ad, and I’m hesitant to do so myself, for two reasons: First, I doubt there’s too much original analysis left to do on it. And second, it’s clearly an attention-grab ad—a commercial that was designed specifically to get people talking and blogging about it that the creative team at Wieden + Kennedy, the agency that produced the ad, engineered to be viral.
I don’t doubt that the phrase “GET PEOPLE AND THE DUMB MEDIA TALKING ABOUT THE AD, STUPID SHEEP HAH HAH HAH”—or some variation thereof—appears somewhere on this ad’s creative brief, and I’d hate to be played by an ad agency. But there are people who honestly believe that this is a brilliant ad that’s authentic and real, and they are completely, unequivocally wrong.
Simply put, this is an exploitative, obvious ad that cements how much of a soulless garbage bag of arrogant jackass Tiger Woods is, how pathetic and hollow Nike’s branding is, and how stupid and naïve Wieden + Kennedy thinks the American public is. It’s rare to see a TV commercial that betrays just how contemptuous a company, its spokesman, and its ad agency is of its audience, but, to mix sports metaphors, this ad pulls off a pretty neat hat trick of disdain.
The spot
The commercial itself is actually elegantly simple: It’s a black-and-white head shot of Woods—with a Nike cap and a Nike sweater vest—staring into the camera, attempting to convey solemnity and contrition (which comes across more as tiredness and suppressed smirkiness).
A recording of his dead father, ostensibly lecturing Woods, plays as a voiceover: “Tiger, I am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was, I want to find out what your feelings are, and did you learn anything.” (The audio is actually from a 2004 documentary about Woods; in that snippet, Woods’ father isn’t even talking to or about Woods, but rather contrasting Woods’ mother’s authoritative personality with his own.) In the final ten seconds of the ad, the shot starts to tighten on Woods’ face, followed by the Nike logo.
The ad feels very manufactured; everything, right down to the eight very conscious blinks Woods takes in the commercial, seems painstakingly planned and scripted. That’s hardly what your big, “Look, I’m coming clean, this is me being real” ad should project—but that’s the least of this ad’s problems.
Grave offense
There comes a point in most people’s lives when they stop expecting their parents to get them out of their jams and take some measure of personal responsibility. Maybe it’s when they moved out of their folks’ home, or when they went to college, or even when they got married.
But even those who are the most reluctant to cut the umbilical cords tend to do so when a parent is, you know, dead and buried.
Not Tiger Woods, though!
He’s more than willing to figuratively dig up his dad’s corpse as a part of his PR rehabilitation strategy. Actually, it’s even worse than that—he’s willing to use the memory of Papa Woods, a man who had lost a painful battle to prostate cancer, to shill some sweet Nike gear. Way to go, kiddo—dad would be so proud.
Many of the more enthusiastic responses to the ad claim that this was a way to demonstrate Woods is taking ownership of his troubles by addressing them head-on. Advertising executive Donny Deutsch told the Washington Post that the ad is “masterful” and “brilliant,” saying that Woods “wants to make a statement that he as a person, father, golfer he has a new level of consciousness, and the best way to demonstrate that is through his father’s voice.”
Really, Donny? That’s the best way? How about demonstrating it through his own damn voice? Or, hey, maybe he can demonstrate it by, say, not trying to commercialize his family’s heartbreak and his wife’s devastation? But, no, you’re right—out-of-context dead dad in a half-assed attempt to repair his brand value really is the best way to show personal growth.
There’s an element of hypocrisy here, too. In the few interviews he’s given since the news of his repeated infidelities broke, he’s dodged several questions by saying that it’s “private” or “personal.” That’s understandable, but it’s less understandable when you’re willing to use the scandal as a marketing tactic and get your dead dad to help you do your dirty work.
As Stephen Colbert pointed out on The Colbert Report, the ad is intended to make the viewer feel like we’re the ones giving Woods a paternal lecture: he’s staring right at us with sad eyes, after all. And this is supposed to thrust us into a position of empathy and understanding, as if we’re supposed to want to find out what Woods was thinking and feeling, and if he’s learned anything.
But sorry—I’m not his dad, I don’t care, and it doesn’t matter if he’s learned anything. Thinking and feeling and learning are all things real human beings do, and this ad does little to convince me that he’s anything more than an anthropomorphic billboard for Nike.
Wooden brand
Wieden + Kennedy is likely patting themselves on the back pretty fiercely for all the attention their ad has gotten. But it’s such a lazy way to measure how “good” an ad is by the attention it’s getting; “well, look at all this buzz” has been used to justify all manner of just terrible advertising. And the Tiger Woods spot is, in fact, terrible advertising.
In the Colbert Report video referenced above, Stephen Colbert astutely pointed out that “usually Tiger sells Nike; this time, it’s the other way around.” And it’s true—it’s a weird quirk of how Nike Golf is so tightly tied to Tiger Woods that a company needs to hawk its hawker.
But what does this ad do to the Nike brand?
Undoubtedly, the ad cheapens Nike’s brand. If we take the ad at face value—a rueful, regretful Woods looking broken while wearing his Nike paraphernalia—the ad is 30 seconds of watching a sad, poor man whose riches and materialistic things, including his Nike stuff, weren’t able to help him then and won’t be able to help him now. Kind of belies the “Nike makes you a superhuman!” BS that Nike advertising tries to foist upon us.
On the other hand, if we take the ad as a desperate attempt for Nike to protect one of its important advertising assets, it makes Woods look like an even more ridiculous and unsympathetic caricature, which makes it harder to swallow all the other nonsense Nike likes to spout.
A lot of Nike’s advertising is strangely unironic; the company really does want its viewers, with very few winks or smirks, to think that all who don the swoosh are really donning the badge of human achievement, dedication and perseverance. Nike’s attempts to implicitly become the proud sponsor of the human spirit are actually among the more annoying parts of its advertising. But now it won’t just be annoying; it’ll be much less credible as well: “Nike celebrates the human spirit and some dude’s ongoing quest to be a greedy bastard? Whatever.”
Campaigns of contrition are hard to pull off without seeming cloying or forced. But what such campaigns usually have in common is that a corporate apology tour wasn’t by choice; when Toyota runs an ad with their tail between their legs, circumstances all but necessitated that ad, and we get that, even if we’re not exactly sold by the ad.
But Nike did have a choice: it was Woods, not Nike, who had copious amounts of cheap, adulterous sex, and Nike doesn’t need to apologize for his sex antics. If they felt that Woods’ troubles would impede his ability to effectively shill their brand, they could’ve joined Accenture and AT&T in dropping Woods.
Instead, they’re trying to use the scandal to their advantage, which is crass and opportunistic. Nike is more than welcome to pick the company it keeps, but they’ll have no one but themselves to blame if customers decide that a brand that chooses to associate itself with sleaze is, in fact, a sleazy brand.
How I would’ve played it
To be clear, Wieden + Kennedy’s real sin isn’t producing an ad that feeds into Woods’ smug sense of entitlement nor is it enabling Nike to take advantage of a tabloid situation to bolster its brand image. It’s hardly realistic for an ad agency to tell Nike that no, sorry, you’re just a little too creepy for our tastes—it is Nike, after all; what do you expect?
Rather, Wieden + Kennedy’s sin is treating us like we’re morons who just moseyed over from Chumptown. Do they seriously expect us to believe that a TV commercial that features two Nike logos slapped onto Woods is the medium through which a sincere moment of personal growth should be communicated? Or that a man who’d use his dead dad to get pity is even remotely sincere?
I'm going on record with this blog entry by calling Tiger Woods a “soulless garbage bag of arrogant jackass”—“soulless” for the dead dad thing, “garbage bag” for using his family’s strife in an ad, and “arrogant jackass” for expecting us to buy it. The soulless could’ve been avoided; the garbage bag of arrogant jackass, not so much.
But even if Wieden + Kennedy was tasked with making a commercial for a garbage bag of arrogant jackass, it could’ve at least been honest and authentic.
Here’s how I would have played it: We can keep the black-and-white head shot of Woods. Instead of any sort of voiceover, Woods just addresses the audience: “Hi, I’m Tiger Woods. Recently, I cheated on my wife and tore my family apart because I like having sex a lot. But here’s the thing: I still want to make money endorsing Nike stuff. So anybody who cares, can we make a deal? I’ll still kick ass at golf, if you’ll still buy the stuff I shill. Sound good?” Cut to a Nike logo.
Or, if that’s a little too coarse: “Hi, I’m Tiger Woods. I know many are disappointed with my actions. But I only owe apologies to my family. I never promised anybody else anything else other than some good golf. Nike sponsors me not because of my morals, but because of my golf game. And even if some think I’ve changed personally, my golf game hasn’t, and so I’m sticking with Nike. Thanks for your time.” Cut to a Nike logo.
Does it still make Woods look like a jackass? You bet.
Will it get just as much buzz—if not more—than the dead dad spot? Definitely.
Is it more real and upfront than the dead dad spot? Refreshingly so, I think.
This might sound like I’m joking, but I’m not. Woods is seen as someone who’s betrayed some sort of public trust; why compound insincerity issues with more insincerity? These spots are edgy, they’re kind of offensive, and they could rightfully be called insensitive—but no one could argue that they’re not honest and treat the audience with the respect of not BSing them.
Last thoughts
Disclosures all around: I have pretty strong feelings about both infidelity (I’m pro-not cheating on people) and Nike (I’m pro-not exploiting factory workers), and I’ve written about both for my print column in The Alligator.
But I honestly don’t particularly care about Woods or his personal life (except inasmuch as it normalizes infidelity culturally), and my criticism of this ad isn’t really about Nike’s labor practices.
It’s just really bad advertising that’s embarrassing for everybody involved. That’s just honesty—and it’s something of which this ad probably could’ve used a little more.
P.S.: Wieden + Kennedy—I’m graduating on April 30 with a shiny degree in advertising, and I’m looking for a job. Just sayin’, maybe?
