Callaway’s Hand Slapped Over Misleading Marketing

Written By: Tony Covey

It appears that Callaway has once again been called out for what somebody considers deceptive marketing practices. As was reported in Thursday’s GolfBiz.net Daily Pulse, Callaway is replacing all of its Big Bertha and XR iron marketing collateral, which features its Up to 2 Clubs Longer claim, with new material that bills the iron sets as offering Distance Where You Need It.

Distance. Where You Need It.

It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it. It’s not as bold as Up to 2 Clubs Longer, but I like it just the same.

Here We Go Again

This isn’t the first time in recent memory that Callaway’s marketing practices have been called into question.

In 2013, the company found itself on the wrong side of a National Advertising Division decision over it’s description of its RAZR Fit Xtreme Driver as the Longest Driver in Golf.

Last February, I called the company out for what I believed to be a disingenuous claim that Big Bertha was The Number One Selling Driver Brand.

Most recently someone has taken Callaway to task over its Up to 2 Clubs Longer Claim.

Within the golf industry there’s an unspoken rule that everyone gets to be a little full of shit. When a little moves closer to totally others start grumbling, and within the industry there’s a lot of grumbling about Callaway right now.

Some of that grumbling, it would seem, has led to action.

Who Threw the Flag?

According what was published in the Daily Pulse the blowback came from outside the company, and it stands to reason that Callaway didn’t rethink its approach without some sort of nudge (or flying elbow). Given where the other complaints originated, we can make a well-reasoned guess where it originated this time.

It was TaylorMade who called foul over RAZR Fit Xtreme and while contacts inside both TaylorMade and Callaway are either saying nothing or simply repeating no comment, no comment, no comment, a credible source with knowledge of the situation is telling us that it was TaylorMade who called foul this time too.

All of that suggests this most recent action isn’t so much about protecting the consumer from dishonest advertising as it is protecting declining market shares from a competitor with an effective marketing campaign.

Score one for us, right?

What’s the golf industry without an annual slap-fight between its two biggest players?

What’s the Problem?

Again, with the parties involved keeping the actual details quiet, we’re forced to read between the lines of the letter Callaway sent to its retail partners.

We’ve included the full letter below, and it’s reasonable to conclude that the complaint has something to do with the fact that a Callaway Big Bertha pitching wedge is under no reasonable circumstance ever Up to 2 clubs longer than a Razr X HL pitching wedge.

Here’s how Callaway explains that piece of it to retailers:

Did you really?

I’m conflicted about this.

As a guy entrenched in the industry I understand that part of the design philosophy for the modern distance iron is to increase gaps on the long end, and then narrow them back to normalcy on the short end. These gapping decisions actually do benefit the type of golfer who generally buys game-improvement clubs, and the simple fact of the matter is that nearly everyone who makes irons employs a similar strategy in their game-improvement designs.

More to the point at hand, Callaway actually spelled out the basis for its claims in the fine print of the Big Bertha Iron distance claim.

Quite frankly, while I thought the comparison itself was bit dubious given the apples to bananas nature of the differences in length and loft between the irons tested, I also thought Callaway did a reasonable-enough job of qualifying it.

However, if I put myself in the shoes of a guy not entrenched in the golf industry, and who probably has little-to-no concept of the ins-and-outs of game-improvement design philosophy from a gapping perspective…that is to say, if I put myself in the shoes of the average golfer, then yes, I can easily see how one might interpret the original ad as a promise for 20 more yards (give or take) from a pitching wedge.

If the 4-iron is 2 clubs longer and the 6-iron is 2 clubs longer, why wouldn’t the 9-iron and pitching wedge also be 2 clubs longer?

From that perspective I might feel mislead.

The average golfer wouldn’t inherently understand that the Big Bertha short irons don’t deliver an equivalent distance benefit. For all the market research Callaway does, one would assume it knows this.

If there’s an argument to be made in Callaway’s defense, it’s that it never actually said that its Big Bertha short irons are up to 2 clubs longer than anything. 4-iron. 6-iron. That was the extent and basis of Callaway’s claim. Check your recent history. Nobody ever goes beyond the 6 iron.

But again, the guy who’s going to buy Big Bertha irons can’t reasonably be expected to know that.

The Smack Down

Without somebody talking specifics it’s hard to know exactly how all of this went down. Maybe one of those threatening letters that the golf company’s legal teams exchange all the time was enough for Callaway to alter its course. Maybe there was involvement by a 3rd party like the Better Business Bureau. It’s been suggested to me that the threat of a class action lawsuit isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

No Comment is the refrain of the day, but let me spell it out for you…it was TaylorMade. Somehow, it was TaylorMade.

Even if Callaway doesn’t believe it was wrong (and even I’m not totally convinced that Callaway is totally wrong), it must have believed it would have been very expensive to try and prove it was right.

And so here we are.

Maybe Callaway Lost, But Who Really Wins?

Perhaps we should celebrate what is arguably a victory for straight-forward truth in advertising, but when companies make reasonable efforts to qualify and back-up their claims, and still get taken to task by competitors throwing rocks from inside glass houses, what are we left with?

Does the fine print need even finer print?

* 2 Clubs Longer Claim based on robot testing of Callaway Big Bertha 4-iron and 6-iron at multiple impact locations versus Callaway Razr X HL 4-irons and 6-irons using average player swing speeds².

2. Distance gains not applicable to short irons where distance will be roughly equivalent between clubs³.

3. Because of differences in length, loft and other design considerations, some clubs may not be considered equivalent.

Where does it end?

It ends with nonsense.

When You’re Out of Words, Create Your Own

When there are no quantifiable claims to be made, or when qualified claims need to be quantified and then re-qualified, consumers are left to try and make sense out of a steady stream of near-meaningless, although often catchy, gibberish.

Up to 2 Clubs Longer (and the specific terms that accompany the claim) is out. The even less meaningful Distance Where You Need It joins the ranks of Outrageous Speed, Ridonkulong, Made of Speed, Made of Greatness, and the 6000 or so variants of faster, longer, and totally-fucking-better-than-what-you-bought-6-months-ago that some of the golf companies have assaulted us with for decades.

Nobody wins here, least of all the guy looking for actual quantifiable performance information.

None of this helps the consumer stretch his dollars either, and that’s distance where we actually need it.

The Letter

Here is a copy of the email Callaway sent to its retail partners. We didn’t add the bold print. That comes straight from Callaway.

Note how the company turns what should be a contrite sorry-we-screwed-the-pooch-and-we-need-you-to-help-us-clean-it-up letter of apology, or at least letter of explanation to its partners, into an opportunity to further push the products associated with the claims currently under scrutiny.

Getting dinged for dubious marketing is, in and of itself, a marketing opportunity.

Consumers love them.*

*excludes consumers who may have felt mislead by the original claim.

Recently, it came to our attention that our “Up to 2 Clubs Longer” advertising claim for the Big Bertha Irons and XR Irons could potentially be interpreted as all clubs providing an equal distance benefit. As we all know from our experience with the sets, the distance and forgiveness benefits of our Cup 360 technology are real! Consumers love them and they are going to set a new standard of iron performance.

Consistent with our passion for delivering ultimate performance that benefit golfers on the course, the distance benefits are built into these sets starting with small benefits in the short irons and building in an impressive manner with large benefits in the mid and long irons.

It was never our intent to imply that the short irons delivered an equivalent distance benefit as the rest of the set and we thought that this would be naturally understood. To ensure the consumer clearly understands the benefits of these clubs, we believe it makes better business sense to simply modify the claim to accurately describe what consumers have been experiencing in droves with Big Bertha and XR. Specifically, they both deliver incredible distance through the set, or as we call it, “Distance Where You Need It.”

Over the next few weeks we will be implementing this change at retail and in the marketplace and will continue, as we have steadily done the past two years, with growing share in the iron category with demonstrably superior performance.

As a result, we will need to make sure that all of our digital assets on your site are updated to reflect the changes. If you could please look at digital, social and supporting copy on the XR Irons and Big Bertha Irons product pages, we would appreciate it. We are asking that all product page copy, videos and digital assets be updated by 3/21. We have included the links to digital assets which your team should utilize moving forward.

Additionally we are sending new in-store graphics and would like to make certain all POP materials and merchandising displays are updated to reflect the new messaging by 3/31. We appreciate your partnership and support with switching out artwork in the appropriate channels. If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to your Callaway Retail Marketing Contact or Sales Representative.