Response to: Sarah Brennan’s “Tiger Woods’ relationship with Nike, ethnic issue or strategic marketing?”
To answer Sarah’s concluding questions in her ethics blog, I believe Nike continues to endorse Tiger Woods for its own benefit of the company. If Nike truly believed Tiger Woods’ image would hurt the company, it would have cut ties long ago.
Nike stayed with Tiger Woods as its ambassador because it knows consumers will not give up their support so easily. But why do people still support Tiger Woods and Nike after such damaging indiscretions occur? Shouldn’t strategic marketing be ineffective if people are aware they’re supporting a defiled brand?
http://www.thecyphersagency.com/blog/2010/12/21/perfect-people-dont-sell-sports-disgraced-tiger-woods-boosted-nikes-sales/
No. There is some psychological process taking place in consumers’ minds when they blindly submit to tarnished brands. That process is moral decoupling – “when people separate out morality from other things” to rationalize their guilty behaviours The theory essentially gives consumers “a free-pass”; people will acknowledge the wrongful acts involving the brand but simultaneously continue to support the quality performance of the brand because in their minds, these two figures are separated from one another. Reed suggests “perhaps this is what Nike [is] banking on. ‘From a marketing point of view, it’s relative to the brand and protecting the brand.’”
In the end, was it a good decision to stay with Tiger Woods? After all, his performance went downhill and Nike was left with a failure; can we conclude Woods was a bad investment?
KNOWLEDGE@WHARTON. “Moral Decoupling: How Consumers Justify Supporting a Tarnished Brand.” TIME.com. Time Business, 17 Sept. 2012. Web. 01 Oct. 2012. <http://business.time.com/2012/09/17/moral-decoupling-how-consumers-justify-supporting-a-tarnished-brand/>.