Badvertising: Accenture

Accenture claims that their ads featuring Tiger Woods are designed to reinforce their promise to help clients become high-performance businesses. The ads show Tiger Woods in different situations on the golf course with the tagline “Go, Be a Tiger.”

I don’t think the ads make this connection very well, and I think that to most people it must look like a gratuitous exercise in celebrity worship. (I’d bet big bucks that the contract between Tiger Woods and Accenture includes guaranteed opportunities for Accenture executives to meet and hang out with Tiger Woods.)

Somehow, I don’t think that the kinds of businesses Accenture wants as clients will be motivated when told to “Be a Tiger.”

What do you think? When can a celebrity endorsement be a good idea to support a business-to-business marketing effort?

Steve Yastrow posted this on September 12, 2004, in Marketing.
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