They seemed smart enough...

Everyone loves a fall from grace. It's human nature. A mixture of relief - for those of you who never have; reassurance - that we're all human, regardless of endorsement value; and fascination - at how far our emotions can betray our rational selves.

The non endemic media, indoctrinated in the lore of brand value transfer, always jump to the conclusion that sponsors will suffer immediate irreperable brand damage. But of course, that's not the case.

Consumers builds relationships with brands over years, like friends - although soap characters is a better analogy. Unless we are ourselves quite strange, we don't drop friends quite so abruptly: even when Fred West's neighbours found out it wasn't party games he was playing in the cellar, the quotes were, more or less: i'm really shocked, he always seemed nice enough.

So the impact on Accenture - from the perspective of brand image - will be minimal. Clients, prospective clients and staff won't walk away in shock. They won't even be quoted: it always seemed like a nice place to work.

The impact, and there will be an impact, looks different.

In terms of corporate self-image, and confidence, they've been weakened. Their positioning around Tiger was leading performance. But, despite running the best (non sports industry) athlete sponsorship for the last six years, their performance has been shown to be flawed. The association has turned out to be ... slightly ridiculous.

Tiger's adventures in the rough were known on the circuit: what does Accenture's apparent ignorance say about its market intelligence?

Their management integrity has to be questioned: if they did know, why didn't they act?

Given their reliance on Woods, where can we see evidence of the risk mitigation and management that would be appropriate in these circumstances? How can Accenture of all companies, be caught with it's metaphorical pants down?

What this points to is internal management failings at Accenture that are not uncommon with much business handling of sponsorship. The essence of the potential damage to Accenture's seven year campaign is that their management of Woods has not lived up to their messaging

From a brand and management perspective, the fact that this is 'just sponsorship' is not a defence. An organisation whose entire proposition is about excellence simply can't have blind spots. A mismanaged sponsorship begs the question: what else?

That said, Accenture won't be paying the price in lost customers, but lost voice.

When you've run an exemplary comms campaign, as Accenture has, what do you say next? Tiger came to represent Accenture's entire positioning. Their association with Tiger, in many ways, has stood for the immense power that sponsorship has to build a brand in the mind of consumers.

To replace Tiger is the challenge. Not the person, because no person can replace Tiger. There are plenty of people who could stand for performance as well as Tiger - albeit without quite the same level of celebrity. But that's not a place Accenture can easily return to. The same strapline, the same corporate positioning, is not an option.

So the challenge is an entire corporate positioning. Which takes money, and energy, and management time. So in the interval, Accenture will find it hard to deliver anything but tactical messaging. Its outdoor and ambient media presence will be placeholders. And when their new campaign, aggressively promised for 2010, emerges - will it stand comparison? So what Accenture have lost - and this plays to the heart of brand communications - is a voice, and a momentum. And like Tiger, their next appearance in public will be closely watched.

If Accenture manage to produce a campaign which begins to rival the punch, the relevance and the simple accessibility of Tiger - a sponsorship, let's not forget - both they and their agency will richly deserve the epithet of leading performance. As a huge fan of what Accenture has done for the past six years, I'll be surprised.

Is there more to sponsorship than the rights market?

Does ESA wants to represent the past or the future?

Ever since Patrick Nally corralled the global TV and stadia signage rights together on Coke's behalf for the 1974 FIFA World Cup, sponsorship has been dominated by rights. And, with the IOC’s announcing it expects to reach the mythical figure of US$1 billion for its TOP programme, rights certainly aren't going away.

Ultimately, the contractual relationship between a ‘sponsor’ and a ‘rights-holder’ will always described in terms of rights. But to understand, to conceive of sponsorship in the same terms - as comfortable as it might be - doesn't begin to equip us to understand how brands are beginning to think - and act. More damagingly, the emphasis on rights restricts our ability to represent the real value sponsorship can bring to business. And, ultimately, it limits the value of sponsorship for both sponsors and rights-holders.

The big question for the sponsorship industry, as represented by ESA, is do you want to represent the past, or the future?

Unless we’re prepared to discriminate between good and bad, more clearly; unless we’re prepared be self-critical, to own up to the bad sponsorships, the duds, the errors of judgment, the wastage and the idiocy; unless we define what to us as an industry represents the best, the optimum model, the reason to believe which is uniquely ours, we'll remain powerless to defend ourselves and advance the very real cause of sponsorship as a serious, credible and increasingly appropriate response to brands’ needs to build deeper relationships with consumers.

Patrick Nally, speaking at Future Sponsorship, said: 'I watched the model we created continually being replicated - almost with disbelief. The ‘rights package’ was never intended to be the definitive answer – every brand’s needs are different.' Patrick drew a distinction between agencies which activate and agencies which sell sponsorship: 'The influence of the sales culture was incredibly formative on thinking of sponsorship at this early stage of development.' The rights package was a sales package.

And as Helen Day, Vice President of ESA explained, the International Chamber of Commerce'sdefinition of sponsorship which ESA still uses embraces the contractual nature of aponsorhip for a very good reason: 'The ICC's definitions are used by governments around the world as a foundation to underpin legislation. Sponsorship had to be defined contractually, as an exchange.'

But is that any reason - or excuse - for sponsorship to stay there?

For Lucien Boyer, CEO of Havas Sport and Entertainment, the rights are just the beginning: 'The rights often don't represent the real value for the sponsor. What is important is the creativity. A smart brand - or smart agency - can build a campaign out of almost nothing if it successfully identifies a powerful emotional insight.'

Nike and Red Bull of course are everyone's favourite paradigm busters. In Nike's most memorable campaigns - Scorpion, Joga Bonita - the endorsement talent is simply the supporting cast for Nike's vision. These are activations in the classic sense: multi-channel, multiple touch-point, driving sales.

But look at Saatchi and Saatchi’s work with T-Mobile's for its recent 'Life's for sharing' Trafalgar Square spot: multi-channel, multiple touchpoint, driving sales, with Pink the backing singer to TMO's world brandview. Pure Nike with a difference - the spot did not sit in the centre of a web of endorsements and team sponsorships. But it could have done.

As Lucien Boyer argued, the ability of a business to derive value from sponsorship demands immense creativity. But for as long as rights remain the dominant framework for this industry, sponsorship’s ability to demonstrate its full potential will be restricted to the few brands comfortable thinking outside of the rights box.

Sponsorship should be arguing its case as intelligently and as forcefully as digital or experiential. And to do that, we need a more meaningful foundation for the industry. Defining sponsorship is one logical place to begin the debate - but it's not the only place. What if ESA were to publish an unequivocal set of best practice criteria, standards which begin to make it clear we, the industry, view sponsorship as an absolutely accountable business practice? What message would we send about sponsorship to brands, the media and CMOs, if ESA publicly recognised that:

• evaluation budgets on sponsorship spend over, say, £50k

• independent evaluation

• disclosure of commission arrangements to client brands

• a standard business case template for sponsorship investment above £50k

- were considered best, no, just good practice. Or that Equivalent Advertising Value, from our perspective, deserves a standard valuation at 1%?

There are challenges, obviously, to standard-setting: challenges of making them practical, and workable. But at the very least they would create some firm foundations, and give us collectively a base from which to lever the greater accountability we all want and need.

Come on ESA, how about it?