Accenture is going to great lengths to dissolve its association with Tiger Woods following revelations of multiple infidelities. Woods’s endorsement deal has ended, the golfer’s name has been removed from the consulting firm’s website and the employees at the company’s New York office have taken down posters featuring Woods.
The company’s advertising campaign is about “high performance,” and Woods “just wasn’t a metaphor for high performance anymore,” a spokesman for Accenture, Fred Hawrysh, told The New York Times.Accenture said it did not tell all of its 177,000 worldwide employees to toss their Tiger T-shirts, caps and tinkets away, the newspaper reported. But when asked about branded merchandise, Mr. Hawrysh said, “Our intention is to ensure we are no longer using it internally or externally.”
Woods became Accenture’s worldwide public face in 2003. At the time, the Accenture name was less than three years old, and was still regularly called by its old name, Andersen Consulting.While some praised Accenture for taking decisive action by severing ties with the tainted celebrity, not all are on the side of the management consulting firm in this brand divorce. Several comments criticized Accenture for bailing rather sticking with Woods and spoke of a company that runs away from complex problems.
“...if you are an Accenture business partner (i.e., client) and hit a rough spot, don't expect them to back you up. Accenture's interests come first, and if there is a problem it's yours, not theirs,” a comment on Agency Spy summed up a general criticism.
More interestingly many people incorrectly associated Accenture with Enron (Accenture split form Arthur Andersen before the Enron saga) which goes to show that Wood’s brand endorsement hadn’t succeed in completely burying the Arthur Andersen association.
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