TorStar Rosie DiManno wrote an interesting and insightful piece, “Tiger Woods’ rebirth brought to you by Nike“. I’ve previously commented on the Nike/Tiger apology ad, here is an excerpt from Rosie’s article,
“Just when it seems that Tiger Woods has got a grasp of scruples – which are not the same thing as morals – he puts his foot in it.
To sell shoes.
Allows Nike to exploit both his personal travails and the memory of a beloved father with the most distasteful TV commercial in recent memory – a creepy admonition from beyond the grave as Woods stares silently, sombrely, into the camera.
Earl Woods is Dead Man Talking, his words from a 2004 documentary resurrected in a stark black-and-white ad that hit the airwaves on the eve of the Masters in Augusta, Ga. The commentary – he sounds like James Earl Jones playing God – is mystifying but larded with momentous dramatic import under the circumstances.
[…] The current ad is Nike playing the dead dad card for penitence and profit. At best, it’s a wincing act of self-flagellation, the son mutely acknowledging how much he’s let down the one person he always strived to impress. It’s hard to believe Nike had the nerve to go there and that Tiger allowed it.
Creatively, the commercial is effective in its evocative moodiness. Yet if it was a genuine statement that Tiger Woods wanted to make, one more expression of remorse – specifically skewed as contrite conscience to the ghost of his father – then there were more pure vehicles for doing so. Even a public service announcement, however weirdly presented – in aid of what, the pitfalls of sex addiction? – would have been more palatable. At least there would have been no grimy profit quotient attached.
Instead, Woods has prostituted both himself and his father for the benefit of his most important sponsor – admittedly one of the few that have stood by the fallen star throughout his troubles.
[…] The polite, hush-hush cathedral of golf at Augusta has provided a favourably made-to-order environment for Tiger’s Second Act. But it would have gone over better without the commercial break for penitent, papa and swoosh.”
Filed under: advertising, Love, Lovemarks, media, people 
