Tag Heuer Retains Tiger Woods As Brand Ambassador Despite Scandal

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed)
Dec 12th 2009 at 11:05PM

It has not been an easy holiday season for mega super athlete Tiger Woods. After news got out about his possible extra-marital affairs and the resulting fiasco surrounding it, the squeaky clean celebrity now has a new angle to his personality. Still, I think he handled the media conference aspects of it much better than others have in the past.

Tiger is a very wealthy guy thanks to years of unprecedented sponsorship and endorsement deals. Suddenly advertisements with his iconic image have all but disappeared - especially on television. Sponsors are worried about possible negative associations with the star looming in the public at this time. Of course, none of this is a surprise.

Like most scandals, this will likely more or less blow over in a few weeks or months. Whatever ensues in Tiger's personal life, is his own business. From a sponsorship standpoint, things won't be quite the same, as some of the more conservative advertisers will likely shun Tiger, although he was once the boy-wonder of conservative image athletes.

One of Tiger's most popular sponsors is watch maker Tag Heuer - who has recently announced their dedication to sticking with the man who has likely been good for their business. Tag Heuer, while a Swiss watch maker, is French owned (by LVMH). While they may pause or delay advertisements in the immediate future, expect to see lots more Tag Heuer ads involving Tiger Woods, a baseball cap, a golf club, and a watch in the near future.

Via World Tempus (in French).

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch review site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: endorsements, golf, scandal, sponsorship, tag heuer, TagHeuer, Tiger Woods, TigerWoods, watch