Tag Heuer is actually one of Tiger Woods’ biggest sponsors, but they are now removing his advertisements from jewelry stores amid his attempt to recover from several scandals regarding extramarital affairs. Tiger Woods endorses Tag Heuer’s LINK series and participated in the design of the “Professional Golf Watch”.

Tiger Woods

Ron Smales is the owner of a Swiss Watch Center in Perth Locale of Subiaco. He is just one of the many who were ordered to pull all advertisements that featured Tiger Woods. Smales keeps a minimum of 70 Tag Heuer watches in his shop and sells an average of 12 in a month. He said he was disappointed with the decision made by Tag Heuer, adding that he had just put the ads up.

Philip Richards, the general manager of Tag Heuer, denied that the removal of the advertisements had anything to do with the issues in Tiger Woods’ personal life. Richards said that the request issued to jewelers around the country was a standard procedure that the company took whenever making changes to its promotions, and added that the company changes its campaigns 4-5 times a year. He finished his statement by adding that Tag Heuer would continue to sponsor Tiger Woods.

Interestingly, Tag Heuer’s removal of Tiger Woods’ ads was in line with US prime-time TV networks removing all commercials featuring Tiger Woods. But Ron Smales thinks things are not as bad as they seem. “The watches sell really well, and I think they will continue to sell really well, and a little bit of controversy can actually boost sales”, states Smales.

So is Tag Heuer removing ads to avoid controversy? Or are these simple procedures that are common for switching to new advertisements? According to a shop employee of Watches Of Switzerland in Brisbane, the controversy surrounding Tiger Woods had not hurt sales. The employee mentioned that the backboards were switched every 2 weeks anyway. He mentioned that no customer had complaint about the fact that Tiger Woods advertised Tag Heuer, by far the biggest selling product in the shop. He did, however, state that some customers did make jokes, and one customer showed a sense of relief when he found out the shop didn’t have any of Tiger Woods’ placards.