Rosenthal on Harvey Wells and Tiger Woods

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: Tiger Woods: Ad business' conventional wisdom gets mauled : : Phil Rosenthal | Tribune Media : December 16, 2009 : : Tiger Woods isn't just destroying his own myth as he swings wildly from one bad bunker lie to another. : Remember "sex sells"? Well, not anymore, apparently. Thanks, Tiger. : How about, "There's no such thing as bad publicity"? Tiger seems to have retired that one, too. : Irish bookmaker Paddy Power reportedly has been laying odds on what the bad publicity and sex would cost Woods in terms of sponsorship deals. The 9-4 favorite, consulting firm Accenture, already dropped Woods from its roster. : That ticking you hear is watchmaker Tag Heuer, which at last check was listed at 3-1, followed by Procter & Gamble's Gillette at 6-1, game company Electronic Arts at 12-1 and Nike at 20-1. : There was a lot of head nodding at Accenture's announcement that Woods was "no longer the right representative for its advertising," even as it promised to "continue to leverage its 'High Performance Business' strategy and 'High Performance Delivered' positioning in the marketplace." As if Accenture had no choice. : Maybe Woods is no longer the model of perfection that Accenture was selling in its ads, and one has to wonder how a firm that touts its expertise in risk management, strategy consulting and talent management could be caught off guard by what seems to be an established pattern of behavior. : But maybe Woods now could be seen as the kind of client who might see the need to bring in a firm like Accenture for help. : In dropping Woods, the message one might take away is that Accenture is the consultant for when things are going smoothly. Slip up, and you're on your own. Or when Accenture makes a mistake, it cuts and moves on. : So Woods, for not being loyal to his partner, gets dropped by another partner. : One has to wonder about the whole idea of using pro athletes for endorsements. There are some fine citizens, but those who cover them generally are kept at such a distance that it's tough to know what's real and what's merely manufactured, managed and marketed. The skills that make one a great athlete do not necessarily make for a great person, though the same may be said of many professions that require single-minded determination and a certain ruthlessness to come out ahead. : Theoretically, if you make one of these people a business partner, you buy yourself a closer view, but there's not a lot of incentive for the viewee if reality isn't pretty. : More than most, golf likes to think of itself as a sport of gentlemen and country clubs, not gentlemen's clubs. It's not just businesslike, it's supposed to be business itself, down to the requirement that proper paperwork be filed at the end of each round in the form of a signed score card. : Nothing louder than an ugly shirt is tolerated. Players are expected to replace their divots before moving on. Allow someone to stumble upon the mess they've left behind, and all hell breaks loose. : All that ends Wells: Harvey Wells, a local radio fixture for nearly 35 years, told staff Tuesday that he is stepping down as vice president and group station manager for entrepreneur Fred Eychaner's Newsweb Radio after his contract runs out in February. : Wells will have been with Newsweb for six years, but remains best known for his decades-long association with WXRT-FM 93.1. : "I don't know that I'm done with radio," said Wells, who turns 60 in February. "I'm a radio guy. That's all that I know. But I do need a break." : Most recently Wells has supervised Willow Springs political talker WCPT-AM 820 and its simulcasts on WDEK-FM 92.5 in DeKalb, WKIE-FM 92.7 in Arlington Heights and WRZA-FM 99.9 in Park Forest for Newsweb. For a time, the trio of FM stations had combined with a music format under the "Nine FM" banner. : Wells broke into Chicago radio as a weekend overnight disc jockey at WXRT in 1975. He settled into middays at WKQX-FM 101.1 before returning to WXRT in 1979, rising through the sales department to become vice president and general manager in 1990. He launched WSCR-AM as Chicago's first sports talk station. He eventually became general manager of the old WCKG-FM and WUSN-FM 99.5 and continued to oversee WXRT. : "If you have a great product for your audience, then you'll serve your advertisers and serve your community," Wells said.

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