How do you Tiger-proof an entire corporation? At Accenture, you start by telling employees to tear down all the posters that say, now somewhat awkwardly, that “we know what it takes to be a Tiger.”I don't know. With a hot Swedish wife and at least 14 girlfriends I'd say his performance must still be at a pretty high level.
For six years, Tiger Woods was the advertising face for Accenture, the big consulting firm. But now that Mr. Woods has confessed to infidelities amid an assault of media coverage, Accenture wants him to disappear.
On Sunday, hours after Accenture ended its sponsorship deal, the golfer’s face was replaced by an anonymous skier on the company’s home page. His name was scrubbed almost completely from the rest of the Web site. The company’s advertising campaign is about “high performance,” and Mr. Woods “just wasn’t a metaphor for high performance anymore,” a spokesman for Accenture, Fred Hawrysh, said.
Continuing:
By Monday afternoon, Accenture staffers had swept through the company’s New York office and removed any visible Tiger posters. The next day, marketing and communications employees around the world were asked to turn in any remaining Tiger-emblazoned posters and other materials. Accenture marketing employees did not respond to requests for comment about the Tiger purge on Wednesday.As of Sunday afternoon they hadn't pulled the ad at John Wayne Airport yet. We snickered at it as we went by.
Accenture said it did not tell all of its 177,000 worldwide employees to toss their Tiger T-shirts, caps and tchotchkes away. But when asked about branded merchandise, Mr. Hawrysh said, “Our intention is to ensure we are no longer using it internally or externally.”
But it takes time to erase the golfer’s identity completely. Accenture spent $50 million on advertising in the United States last year, and Mr. Woods appeared in 83 percent of the company’s ads — far more than for any of his other major sponsors — according to TNS Media Intelligence.
The remaining billboards and ads, now outdated, inspire smirks and jokes. In ads at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, Tiger is seen crouching on the green, studying a golf ball’s trajectory and endorsing outsourcing. In Atlanta, he is posed as The Thinker, adorned with a Nike hat, promoting management consulting. At Dulles International outside Washington, he is peering into the distance, dark clouds on the horizon. That ad, forebodingly, says it is “tougher than ever to be a Tiger.”
“The Accenture ads with Tiger finally make sense,” Quentin George, the chief digital officer for Interpublic Mediabrands, an advertising holding company, remarked on Twitter Wednesday.
Frankly, I'd never heard of Accenture before all this broke. The Tiger scandal may be the best name recognition campaign they've ever had.
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Accenture used to be the consulting arm of Arthur Andersen. They survived after the fall of Arthur Andersen due to the Enron scandal.
Accenture partners claim that the company enforces high ethical standards but the facts shows differently.
Douglas Scrivner responded to a SEC related to the reestructuring costs that http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1143908/000095013706000977/filename1.htm
“The partners did not pay the tax liability at the time of the reorganization transaction because the Company and its external advisors felt there was a reasonable possibility of a favorable outcome. The Company and its external advisors believed the tax positions related to the restructuring transactions were appropriate and supportable under local tax law and the Company intends to defend, as needed, tax positions taken by the partners. A favorable outcome is still possible through either issues not being identified on audit by tax authorities, a successful defense of the position, or expiration of the statute of limitations, so it is not appropriate to pay the tax liability at the time of the transaction, or at any time, unless administrative and legal processes have concluded and resulted in an actual unfavorable outcome.”
In page 16 of the "NOTICE OF THE 2010 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF SHAREHOLDERS"
( http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1467373/000119312509251604/dpre14a.htm ) is stated:
"Senior Executive Tax Costs
The Company has informed approximately 2,500 of our senior executives that if the senior executive reported for tax purposes the transactions involved in connection with our transition to a corporate structure in 2001, the Company will, in certain circumstances, provide a legal defense to that individual if his or her reporting position is challenged by the relevant tax authority. In the event such a defense is unsuccessful, and the senior executive is then subject to extraordinary financial disadvantage, the Company will review such circumstances for that individual and find an appropriate way to avoid severe financial damage to that individual."
In the newspaper el Mundo there was informed that Accenture (and therefore all shareholders) have paid 110 million euros, plus the penalty related with the unpaid taxes of the 100 Spanish Partners in 2001 reestructuring.
http://www.elmundo.es/mundodinero/2008/06/20/economia/1213922650.html
If now as declared there are 2500 senior executives that might be in the same situation, it is stright forward to have a direct correlation of the possible personal tax impact on former senior executives that Accenture is commenting it might be paid by the company and therefore by all Accenture shareholders.
Which ethical standards are higher, Mr. Wood's or Accenture's?
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