“The world is changing.” I laughed out loud when my six year old daughter told me that the other day when I asked her why she no longer liked Golden Grahams. It used to be her favorite cereal (it still is mine). I suppose she’s heard me say that a thousand times, and I’ve probably said it a million times in the last six months here as SVP of Marketing at Callaway.
More specifically, consumers have changed dramatically in golf and so have their expectations about how they want to experience brands. Gone are the days of carefully crafted, heavily orchestrated marketing campaigns. Well they’re not gone, but they’re becoming an anachronism in our dynamic sport. Golfers want a new kind of engagement. They want authentic, personal connection points with the people that make our sport special: Tour players, retailers, club professionals, equipment manufacturers, and each other.
This evolution in golf is the same evolution that has occurred in many other enthusiast-driven passion filled consumer products. The traditional influence models have gone through a complete metamorphosis. In some cases, the stakeholders are much different than they were even 5 years ago. Golf’s influence pyramid has changed too. Though golf’s influencers remain largely intact, it’s no longer a two-dimensional pyramid, but a fully 3D “sphere of influence.” Each participant in the sphere inextricably linked in a wonderful symbiotic conversation of all things golf. If you’re reading this, you’re right in the middle of it! And it’s real time, dynamic, exciting, and addicting!
This is one of the fundamentals to the “New Callaway.” Our new brand mission and new commitment to being the most transparent, most connecting, most engaged brand in golf. Yes, those are lofty goals. But we’re committed to being different, behaving differently, engaging with you, the fans, differently, and becoming a different kind of golf company than people are used to encountering.
You’ll see us be a lot more experimental. You’ll see us be a lot more risk taking in our communications approaches. We won’t feel as heavily produced and carefully crafted as you’re used to seeing. We won’t always get it perfect. We’ll make mistakes…and we’ll correct them. We will listen to what you want, and we will respond. We will become much more newsroom and morning show-like in that we will be quick, topical, responsive, interactive, and entertaining (hopefully!).
And we invite you all to be a part of it.
More to come, because the world is, well, changing!
Let me know what you think: @callaway_harrya
Harry
MyGolfSpy was here. MyGolfSpy Approves. Now get back to work Harry.
When will Callaway announce all-access, 24-hour, 7 days a week, HarryTV? Now that’s pro playability!
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