5 January 2010 - 17:13Tiger Woods – Brand Value Is Real Money

It is time to revisit once again the value of brands as illustrated by the Tiger Woods brand.  While brand values have taken a hit this year as in General Motors,  Chrysler, Lehman Brothers and all the other brands hit by the recession, the Tiger Woods brand and endorsed brands gives us a view of how brand value is effected having  nothing to do with the economy.

According to Victor Stango and Christopher Knittel, economics professors at University of California Davis, shareholders of Woods major sponsors, such as Nike, Gatorade and AT&T have lost somewhere between $5-billion and $12-billion in market capitalization as a result of Tiger’s fallen image.  If we add this to the loss of revenue for the upcoming 2010 PGA golf tournaments that will certainly lose money because of Tiger Woods absence, how many more billions of dollars will be lost? We already learned from Woods absence from the 2008 tournaments from his knee surgery that viewership of these tournaments was down drastically.  How about the game of golf itself?  Golf courses and country clubs have already suffered due to the economy.  Will there be fewer aspiring Tiger Woods heading for the links this spring and summer?

The Tiger Woods brand issue should make CEO’s and CMO’s reevaluate their brand strengths and brand management and give high priority to brand strategy as part of their overall business strategy. We can now see how much brand can have a major impact on a company’s bottom line.