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.