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Against Tiger’s titillating descent into 21st century digital-tabloid vortex, Nike was busy hedging its bets on its iconic brand with a simply and skillfully produced 30-second spot that has set critics and pundits afire.

Did Nike’s sparse video have game?  Let’s break it down:

a) Use of black-and-white.  Reflects and deconstructs the black and whites of classic mores, morals, and tradition.  (Public rebuke or poetic irony?)

b) From Medium to Close-up.  Lures the skeptic into a gradual acceptance of global icon as sullen and fallen hero, Tiger framed dead center, no doubt.

c) Voice from God (Earl Woods).  Evokes paternalism, rehashes athletic myth, and frames interior monologue as brand-to-consumer dialectic.

d) Brand image.  Treats video like a tagline and punctuates it, no less, with a SWOOSH.

Taken together then, Nike’s attempt at brand resuscitation assumes that today’s consumer—

a) Prefers to live in grays, separating the blacks and whites of private life with public persona, and later re-samples them to the whims of temperamental commodification.

b) Wearies of his own outrage – likely, after 154 days! – that eventually gives way to pity and later, empathy.

c) Delights in memory loss and revisionism.  Who doesn’t like a good story – especially, a father-son tale – no matter its out-of-context voiceover (lifted from a 2004 documentary, Earl Woods’ remarks were originally directed at Tiger’s mother, Kultida) or character inaccuracies.

Did Nike assume rightly or wrongly?

And how will the Tiger brand fare in the months ahead?  As case study in blind corporate blunderism or as paragon of tactical, re-branding genius?

Considering Tiger’s Augusta run ended 5 shots back of Lefty (who, in ironic twist, solidified his posture as most family-friendly brand), we’ll have to wait and see.