If you get the product right, everything else follows.

So General Motors has inevitably parted company with Tiger Woods. Some commentators have claimed that this somehow proves that endorsements of this type don’t work. Nonsense. In Tiger’s case, Nike and Accenture in particular disprove the point. Tiger may be a miracle-worker, but not even he could have saved GM from its current predicament. The problem isn’t Tiger, it’s GM.

Also this week, the PGA Tour announced the FeEx Cup’s third format overhaul in as many years. As I wrote back in September, in this case, the problem is also the product – the Cup format. Only time will tell if, this time, the PGA has got the product right.

Which brings me to the latest example of NPD on the PGA Tour, the Kodak Challenge. Like both the FedEx Cup and the Red Bull Final 5, it’s a competition-within-a-competition, its USP being to link great holes on different courses, with $1m going to the player who posts the lowest score on the Kodak Challenge Holes over the season.

Again, only time will tell if Kodak has got the product right – on which point I suspect they’ve missed a trick by not adding a cause-related overlay to counter-balance the $1m prize  - but there’s a lot to like here, in particular the integration of Kodak’s ‘Kodak Moments’ heritage; the opportunity to leverage the wonderful imagery that great golf courses provide; and the season-long campaign platform. What I most like is that, as the Kodak blog reveals, Kodak planned their activation upfront – one of the keys to successful sponsorship.

By Tim Crow on November 28th, 2008

Tags: Branded content, Default, Experiential marketing, Golf, New Product Development, PGA Tour, Public relations, Sales promotion, Sponsorship, Tiger Woods

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