Tiger Woods Endorsement of GM Ends

[pennypinch]

For nine years Tiger Woods has been displaying the General Motors Buick logo on his golf bag because of an endorsement deal he had with the company. This has now come to an end.

General Motors has been looking for any way it can to cut costs right now with the economy taking such a bad toll on the company financially. Therefore, they made the decision to drop the endorsement deal with Woods to save money.

Larry Peck, Golf Marketing Manager for General Motors said they have had such a good relationship with Tiger Woods that they hated to walk away from that. He says that it will free up time for Tiger and definitely free up money for the company.

Next year, in 2009 the deal that General Motors had with Tiger Woods was set to expire. The deal has been said to be worth at least seven million dollars a year for Tiger Woods.

Tiger has mainly been in Buick commercials and has endorsed General Motor products all around the world. They believe that Tiger brought attention to Buick's to the younger generation. It is said that seventy-eight percent of those who have bought Buicks in the last few years had not previously been Buick fans.

They say Tiger brought attention and awareness to younger people who otherwise may not have considered a Buick.

General Motors has had to make major cuts in the advertising of their products to conserve as much funds as they can. General Motors is the nations largest automaker and they have had to spend nearly seven billion dollars more than they made during the last quarter and they without federal government help they just might reach the very minimum amount of cash to run the large company by this years end.

There are no hard feelings between General Motors and Tiger Woods over breaking the deal early. Tiger has said that he has been looking for some free time and he understands the companies financial burdens. It was a mutual decision.

Buick has also just said last week they will have to cut back on things such as its deal to provide courtesy cars at PGA Tour events.

General Motors has also decided to not advertise during the superbowl which can be a huge expense. They most likely will advertise before and after the game though. They have also decided not to run ads during the Oscars and Emmy Awards in 2009. This will be the first time in over a decade that they will not have ads run before, during or after those events.

[dollardaze]

I'm sure that Tiger Woods sold a lot of cars for GM, I'm wondering if this is a good deal for the company. I personally think that the company's executives could take a little less home in their paychecks to keep Tiger's name and face in their commercials. From what I've heard reported these execs take home more money in a year than most of us will earn in our lifetimes. It's crazy, and I don't think there's a human being out there that's worth all that cash. (Of course Tiger Woods gets his share of big bucks too).

[dimetime]

I think it would have been a good idea for all those "Big Wigs" to take a pay cut and keep Tiger Woods with the company. I mean if he brought in so many new people to purchase Buicks then this makes the company money. With out him wont the sales just start to drop again??
Advertising the is only way to sell a product. I can understand not wanting to spend a small fortune to advertise during serious events, but to cut a celebrity who has brought the cash flow up, to me just seems out of the norm. I am glad to see that both parties in this decision were in mutual agreement. Its one thing to break a contract early if all are in agreement and something quite different if both are not. Hopefully soon the economy will take a sharp turn for the better and continue on the better path from now on. That is what it and we all need!