“Tiger-Ade” dropped by Gatorade

Tuesday, 08 December 2009 14:29

Gatorade…the company with maybe the best inadvertent timing ever.

Gatorade has confirmed to Darren Rovell that their Tiger Woods product, Tiger Woods Focus, has been dropped by Gatorade.  CNBC has the details,

The decision, they say, has absolutely nothing to do with recent events surrounding Woods, but more to do with a strategy devised months ago to streamline their offerings.

Gatorade officials provided a statement to CNBC which says: “We decided several months ago to discontinue Gatorade Tiger Focus along with some other products to make room for our planned series of innovative products in 2010. We hope to share more about our 2010 plans soon.”

The deal was also a precedent setter given that Woods’ agent Mark Steinberg managed to negotiate the deal as a licensing agreement. Instead of getting paid a straight-up fee, Woods received a royalty based on sales. Steinberg did not immediately return an e-mail asking about the phasing out of the Tiger drink. (via CNBC)

Yikes…or not so much.  As the article pointed out, Gatorade had planned on streamlining their product line months ago.  According to Rovell, Beverage Digest actually reported that the product was being discontinued a few days before Tiger-gate happened.

Gatorade will continue to have Tiger Woods as an endorser.

It all goes back to the fact that Woods is a cash cow who has no competition, as far as endorsements go.  As long as Tiger continues to perform well, and as long as there are more people who are for Tiger than against…he will continue to hawk products.  Again, there’s very little morality in advertising, so whatever indiscretions Tiger was allegedly involved in will only effect his endorsement status if its combined with poor performance and someone else who can do the job better.

Even with the indiscretions, there isn’t another Tiger Woods.