Everything About Business Except The Bottom Line: FunnyBusiness

Forget How Much Money Tiger Is Losing Because Of His Sex Scandal: Study Says Shareholders Are Taking a $5-$12 Billion HIt

If the researchers at The University of California Davis did their math correctly, Tiger Wood's multi- infidelities is costing shareholders a boatload of money.Possibly as much as $12 Billion dollars.

The event study" method that we employ measures losses relative to both the stock market as a whole and a set of competitor firms - in other words, relative to all firms that do not use Mr. Woods as an endorser. For example, we measure the losses for Nike shareholders considering both changes in the broader stock market, and changes in the value of Reebok. Event studies are commonly used in economics and finance to measure changes in shareholder value following unanticipated events.

What is so fascinating about this particular study is that usually the focus is on how much the celebrity is losing when a scandal causes a corporation to sever their relationship with a celebrity. Tiger Woods was earning $100 million in corporate deals - more than any other celebrity.

Tiger is certainly not the first celebrity that has caused corporations to switch marketing programs and disassociate themselves with "tainted goods."

Tiger is not the only celebrity to lose eendorsements in 2009. Michael Phelps was dropped by Kellogg after photos of him smoking weed showed up online.  Chris Brown was dropped by Doublemint gum after he was arrested for assault.

Tiger's problems are probably now going to be the problem of lots of celebrities who have enjoyed lucrative endorsement deals. Last year, Greenlight. L.A. measured the number of ads during the Grammy Awards that had celebrity endorsements.   In 2009, only 7% of the advertising involved a celebrity endorsement - a significant drop from 2008 and 2007 when endorsementt spots accounted for 13% and 21% of the advertising. David Reeder of Greenlight,LA told  Media Daily News last February,

"Every year, over the past 10 years, there are a handful of celebrities who are caught misbehaving in public and lose their endorsements. I don't think it means brands are going to stop using them," Reeder says. "[But given] this stuff and the current economic crisis, they are going to think twice about it."

Some marketers are taking a more subtle approach. Rather than enlisting celebrities as endorsers, they are getting them to work behind the scenes or have up-and-comers be less visible, just in case, Reeder says. "What brands are doing is trying to control the content associated with their brands [by using] a go-to guy--a relatively obscure person to the general public.

The creators of the report about shareholder loss due to Tiger Wood's many extracurricular relationships caution that their findings could be "statistically noisy."

we should caution that our estimates are statistically `noisy,' in that they could be signicantly higher or lower than the numbers we report. One must make that caveat in any statistical study like this, and in our case the statistical margin of error is particularly large in part because Mr. Woods' sponsors are (with the exception of Nike and EA) subsidiaries of larger parentcompanies.

2009 Is The Year For "Me Gifting"

It was the second call in a matter of 20 minutes that really got my attention this morning. Both of my callers lamented the fact that they had not been invited to one holiday party this year. Caller #1 thinks it's all economy related; throwing a party just costs too much money. Caller #2 thinks it's because she hasn't been a very good friend this year - busy work-life, busy personal life.

What both of my friends may not realize is that in general, friends and family are "just not that into anyone this year."

According to the latest research, the number one person on most people's holiday gift lists in 2009 is not their friend or family, i'ts themselves.

Alison Kaplan of the St.Paul Pioneer Press writes- ( no link love available, The {Pioneer Press archived the article. What is their problem?),

Sixty-one percent of shoppers bought for themselves over Black Friday weekend, according to the consumer research firm NPD Group.

"That's a huge shift," said NPD senior analyst Marshal Cohen. In past years, he said, more like 25 percent of holiday shoppers were buying gifts for themselves.

For more on the change in holiday gifting, check out my post on BlogHer.

The Days Of Jumping Off Cliffs To Build Trust On Teams May Be A Thing Of The Past

Over the years I have had quite a few friends who have gone on an office off- site that included jumping off a cliff with their team mates. While the actual teams may have been skeptical about the ROI for these adventures, corporate executives were enamored with these excursions.

There is a reason why. It promised to be a quick fix for a problem that isn't fixed quickly or easily. Creating and sustaining trust on a corporate work-team is vital for productivity. The only problem is, in today's corporate environment trust is often a hard commodity to find.

If corporations aren't turning to rope courses for their solutions, where are they turning? More on that at my post on BlogHer.

Can Amazon Withstand The Full Throttle Attack Known As Walmart ?

On December 18,2000 Businessweek ran an article called Walrmart.com vs. Amazon: This Race Isn't Close. At that time there was a lot of interest on whether Walmart would eat Amazon alive. The analysis from Businessweek: Amazon didn't have a thing to worry about because their website was far superior to Walmarts.

Businessweek's prediction held up. For the next nine years, Walmart's online presence could not compete with Amazon, which became the largest online retailer.

The sleeping giant is now awake and has decided that it is not happy with Amazon owning the #1 spot in retail.  Walmart has put Amazon on notice that it will fight it tooth and nail to be the #1 retailer in the online space.

More of this battle royale on my post at BlogHer.

Do you care which retailer is number one?