Tiger Could Have Just Run an Ad

The tightly scripted Tiger apology session was a complete farce. He could have just taken out an ad in newspapers and said the same thing. The whole thing took a page from the former Bush rallies in which only friendlies are invited. It is supposed to give the appearance of being open and honest in a supportive atmosphere.

Tiger needed to appear before the public and apologize, but he also needed to answer questions, as distasteful as that may have seemed to him. Alex Rodriquez went through the Q&A session and came out stronger for it. Without the Q&A, this seemed to contrite, too scripted. One even has to wonder is there was a script that called for Mom to go up afterward and hug him. The photo released to the wires showed three women (none being his wife--she did not choose to "stand by her man"). The three were the head of the Tiger Woods Foundation, his mother and a representative of Nike, the sponsor that has stood by him. Nike can weather this storm. Tiger made Nike Golf. Unlike Accenture, their brand will likely not be damaged. Accenture has ordered all images of Tiger taken out of all offices worldwide. "Go on, be a Tiger" is not something Accenture wants to people to be reminded of.

Tiger is taking more than a few hits from fellow golfers as well. He chose a Friday during the Accenture Match Play Championship to make his announcement, taking attention away from that tournament for a bit. It is interesting that he chose to do it to a tournament bearing the name of one of his former sponsors and elected to do it to some of his friends on the tour. Talk about selfish! Tiger apologizes for being selfish in a way that demonstrates his selfishness and claims that he was wrong to believe he could play by different rules than the rest of us using a forum that shows that he believes he does play by different rules.

It is interesting that the tables have turned a bit between men and women. Women were down on Tiger and men were continuing to support him. After his apology, woman were more quick to forgive; men seemed to find it difficult to take. This was not, as the saying goes "a stand up" performance. A "stand up" guy would have gone public, perhaps on Oprah or in front of the cameras as Mark McGuire did, and show how sorry he was and taken his "lumps". Taking hits is an important part of both the healing and forgiveness process.

What is most disturbing in all of this is that it sends a wrong message about how to handle a crisis. This flies directly in the face of all best practices. Let's just hope that the same agents advising Tiger, including Ari Fleisher, former press secretary to President Bush, are never hired to handle a real corporate crisis. What a minute, could they be working for Toyota?