Tiger, Thierry, Roger Screw Up Gillette Campaign

The dream team Gillette assembled for its sports marketing campaign is starting to look like a nightmare. The roster: Roger Federer, Thierry Henry and Tiger Woods. Ouch. Every one of those international superstars has been embroiled in recent controversy; Federer for his outburst at the US Open, Henry for the handball that got France into the World Cup, and Tiger for…well, you know.

Gillette says it’s sticking with its campaign and planned media schedule, but it hasn’t aired a single commercial with Woods since Nov. 29; last year, it ran 25 such spots between Nov. 29 and Dec. 7. “It was the perfect storm of knucklehead athletes, all screwing up at the same time, costing Gillette a fortune in negative publicity,” one advertising professor tells the Boston Globe. “Thus the danger of using athletes as endorsers for your brand.” (More Tiger Woods stories.)