I'm trying to find the right word, "bizarre" "peculiar" etc, but what keeps coming to mind is a very missable moment from The Muppets Take Manhattan when Fozzie is trying to jog Kermit's memory and we come in in the middle of a really long joke Fozzie is telling to hear him say "and then the koala bear says, 'well this is odd.'" This ad makes me feel like I've walked into the middle of something that I don't- can't- fully understand, and all I can say is "Well this is odd."
And I believe that is the point.
The Tiger Woods narrative, more than anything, has been depressingly simple. Before his rambunctious sex life became public knowledge, Tiger was mostly a black box. Not just unknown, but unknowable. A mystery that provided a mystique to cloak the best golfer ever.
Then, crash boom bam, he's just a guy who can and does sleep with a lot of women. The black box is blown open, and he's human all too human, and a sleazy one at that. His depth became shallow.
I remember a conversation I had years ago with someone who had just found out that Lance Armstrong had had a divorce. This ran contrary to her whole idea of Lance Armstrong. I was more of the "lots of people get divorced," attitude. I'm not sure whose divorce would shock me. The Obamas' perhaps. That's all I can think of. Tiger managed to hold that reputation of being above and beyond in body, mind and soul. I remember a day in the summer of 2002 when a housemate was watching replays of Tiger having a very bad day. "You're human!" he exclaimed, totally shocked. For most of the world, this is not news. Again, Obama comes to mind, and I feel his loss of approval ratings post-election is mostly from a general transition of people's mindsets of Obama as a concept to Obama as a human.
But back to the ad. I saw Doug Rushkoff (his book Life Inc., though cynical, is worth your time) speak once in high school. It was a good speech, I still remember it a decade later. He talked about how he had helped Diesel, the jeans company, come up with their ad campaign. Here's one. Apparently they make watches now:
The main point is to not make sense. Your conscious mind probably just says "weird" and moves on, but some part of you assumes that Diesel gets something that you don't. You try to piece together rational reasons for the timing of the laugh track, the woman's style, the choice of strange looking old men instead of the standard cool hunks. You don't know why (because there is no why), but you assume on some level that Diesel knows why. That's the idea anyway.
The idea behind the Tiger ad is that he is still deeper than you. There is something that Tiger gets that... well, you might get it but probably not. Nike gets it. Do you get it? Tiger is lusty but introspective, driven but distracted, focused but... oh he's focused. He's not looking away from the camera, but not giving you anything. Unless he did. Unless you get it. Do you get it? Nike gets it.
This ad will be 90% forgotten in a month, but cleverly and carefully, Nike-Tiger layers the mystique back on. If this works, maybe he should be paying them.
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