DETROIT, June 21 — After eight years as the face of Buick, Tiger Woods is still less than half the age of an average Buick owner.
And from now on, General Motors plans to spend less time convincing people that Mr. Woods actually wants to drive a Buick and use him instead as a pitchman in companywide ads for products like OnStar, a communications service offered by all eight G.M. brands.
Mark R. LaNeve, G.M.’s vice president for vehicle sales and marketing in North America, said Thursday that the automaker wants its ads to focus on its products rather than on Mr. Woods.
“I don’t want a celebrity at the very core of any of the brands,” Mr. LaNeve told reporters. “We want the message on Buick to be what Buick’s true north is, which is classic, premium American vehicles. Tiger should be on the periphery helping us do that.”
Mr. Woods, 31, has been with Buick since December 1999. G.M. has signed him to represent the company through 2009, when his five-year contract, reportedly worth $40 million, expires.
Although his prominence has helped Buick gain visibility, experts question whether the millions of dollars that G.M. spends on Mr. Woods has had any real effect on the century-old brand, which now produces just three models. The average Buick buyer is 63 years old, according to the Power Information Network.
“There was just no believability that Tiger was dying to drive a Buick,” said Laura Ries, president of Ries & Ries, a marketing strategy firm in Atlanta.
“The brand personalities just didn’t go together, like oil and water,” she said. “Buick is an older person’s car. Tiger is very young, very cool and at the top of his game. You imagine him driving a Bentley or a Mercedes or a Lexus.”
Mr. LaNeve said such criticism was not a factor in G.M.’s decision to change Mr. Woods’s role, saying Mr. Woods is a “great asset” for the automaker and “does a great job for us.”
Whenever Mr. Woods appears in a future G.M. ad, he will be shown driving a Buick, Mr. LaNeve said. He currently appears in a television spot for OnStar that also features the talk show hosts Kelly Ripa and Jimmy Kimmel; Mr. Woods is seen asking an OnStar operator to unlock the door to his Buick Enclave, the brand’s new crossover vehicle, after inadvertently locking his golf shirt and keys inside.
“He’s got an association with General Motors,” Mr. LaNeve said, “so why shouldn’t we use him beyond just Buick?”
Buick officials said Mr. Woods recently took delivery of a fully loaded Enclave CXL. He also drives a Buick Lucerne and several other G.M. vehicles.
