By Nicole Penn and Sydney Donovan, EGC’s Director of Public Relations Let’s discuss the Callaway and Good Good Golf disaster. In case you missed it: In a social ad promoting its co-branded driver, Good Good Golf co-founder Garrett Clark sees golfer Alexis Miestowski reaching toward his golf bag. He runs at her, shoves her to the ground, and stands over her while saying: “Do not touch my new driver.” Yes, that was the ad. A man knocking a woman to the ground was used as a joke to sell golf equipment. As someone who has spent years making creative work, I cannot understand how this ad saw the light of day. If you have ever created any sort of ad creative, you know the process. Someone writes a brief. Teams review it. Someone develops the concept. Teams review and dissect that concept. A script gets written. The client reviews it many times. Talent is cast. A crew shoots it. Editors work on it. Marketing teams, management teams, and lawyers weigh in at each step. There are usually dozens of hands and brains in the process. At any one of those stages, did anyone say: “Are we sure we want to show a man shoving a woman to the ground over a golf club?” The Commercial Consequences Arrived Quickly The video was removed after criticism had spread online on August 21 and 22. Deleting it did not end the story (the internet rarely forgets these things). By August 25, Callaway had removed listings for the Good Good Golf co-branded drivers and golf balls from its website. Links for the collaboration at Dick’s Sporting Goods and Golf Galaxy showed these products as out of stock. Store-level reports also said Good Good Golf merchandise and signage had been removed. Neither retailer had publicly confirmed a company-wide removal when this article was written. The fallout also reached television. The Golf Channel postponed the premiere of Big Break x Good Good after a sponsor requested the removal of its branding. (Sources: GOLF.com, Front Office Sports, and CBS News.) Women Are Driving Golf’s Growth This ad would have been offensive at any time. Its appearance now reveals how out of touch the creative was with the business of golf. Women and girls accounted for 52 percent of golf’s net participation gains. More than 8.1 million now play on-course golf, and they represent 28 percent of players, which is the highest share ever recorded. These are golfers who buy clubs, apparel, lessons, and memberships. They are introducing their children and friends to the sport. They are part of golf’s current audience and a major part of its future. Golf already had work to do to make women feel welcome. This ad campaign has added miles to that journey. Then Came the Apology Statements Good Good’s first statement stated the video depicted actions that were “not aligned with our values.” The company removed it, apologized, and pointed to its mission of making golf more inclusive. Callaway’s first response said it was “disappointed by the content” and thanked Good Good Golf for addressing it. That language drew another round of online criticism. Good Good Golf produced and published the ad. Callaway approved it. And yet the first statements spoke about the content as if it had appeared on its own. Callaway’s response created distance from a decision in which the company participated. This is where the phrase “does not reflect our values” starts to lose meaning. What reflects a company’s values if the work it reviews, approves, and publishes does not? Values appear in decisions, budgets, and with whoever has permission to stop bad work. They cannot live only in the statement released after the backlash. Both companies issued stronger responses after their first attempts failed. Callaway CEO Chip Brewer acknowledged that the company had approved the video. He said that approval should never have happened, announced internal and external investigations, and said Callaway had already changed parts of its approval process. Good Good Golf CEO Matt Kendrick accepted responsibility for the execution. He said the company would review its creative process, bring more perspectives into approvals, and donate proceeds from the driver campaign to a local organization that supports women. On Thursday, August 27, Callaway issued an additional apology statement that included specific actions being taken, including a $1 million commitment to support organizations working to prevent violence against women. Statements and apologies that contain facts and actions are always a more appropriate path forward. From a crisis communications perspective, it’s important to remember that the recovery process requires multiple phases of investigation, understanding, research and discussion. Callaway’s more thorough statement that came days after the incident was an indication that they’d spent time learning more about what went wrong, and how they can ensure nothing like this ever happens again. The process is far from over, and they have acknowledged being a positive influence as an ongoing focus for their company. Does Anyone Believe a Corporate Apology? This situation raises a larger question for anyone working in Public Relations: Do people still believe or care about corporate apology statements? The research suggests that they do, but they are judging much more than the word “sorry.” While there is no ‘one statement solves all’ solution to these situations, audiences are most interested in what you plan to do to make good on your snafu. A study in the Journal of Business Research used two preregistered experiments involving 1,410 participants. It found that corporate apologies can improve trust and consumer support. The most important factor was whether the apology gave people a reason to believe the company would reform. Evidence of change mattered more than the admission of blame. Read the study. Another experiment involving 1,630 participants tested different elements of organizational apologies. Remorse, responsibility, and a promise not to repeat the conduct all mattered. Offering a concrete form of repair produced the strongest improvement in intended customer behavior. Read the research. People have not stopped caring about apologies, but they have become better at recognizing empty ones. What Can Brands Learn From This? All press is good press” is a lie. Controversial advertising may spark conversation, but ask yourself: Is it the right conversation? People are paying close attention. Every form of external marketing and communications are up for public scrutiny, and your teams should be proud to stand behind whatever that marketing looks like. Avoid vague language in your response. This can create a whole new wave of negative attention. A stronger initial response might have read: We produced and approved an advertisement that depicted violence against a woman as a way to sell a golf club. Publishing it was a serious failure of judgment. We are responsible for earning back your trust. Time will tell whether Callaway and Good Good Golf can rebound from this. That will depend less on how many times the company apologizes and more on what changes inside their creative and approval processes and overall inclusivity. Visit EGC’s Suade page to learn more about our PR capabilities.
