XBombs and the Zoo Crew

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We like to call the Callaway marketing group “The Marketing Zoo Crew.” Sometimes people will call us “The Morning Zoo Crew” or just “The Zoo Crew.” A lot of people ask me about that name since it seems so strange to think of a marketing group like a morning radio program. But that’s what we do because it fits so well with our new marketing approach. That approach is trying our best to deliver a dynamic exchange of creative ideas between us, The Zoo Crew, and you. It’s designed to bring a few key things to you, the golfer:

-Timely Product and Company Information

We want to make sure you’re getting all the info you need about our products to make informed, intelligent, and the best decisions. We want you to feel at any given point, you can ask us anything and everything about our products and our innovations. And we want to do it fast. Really fast. As in, so fast that we don’t really care what the production values are in a lot of cases. We want you guys to think of us as a newsroom, because that’s how we behave, all the way down to meeting first thing in the morning everyday to ask ourselves what is important to you that day. That week. That month. That golf season.

-New Ways to Engage w/ Callaway

We believe that golfers are wanting new ways to engage with a golf company. With us. In other words, the one-way, controlled messaging, and carefully crafted “marketing” is just too limiting. Yes, of course can work, and there are other really good companies that do it and do it really well. But that’s not us. Or at least not who we want to be. We think there’s a better way. The word “engagement” is critical to us. We want to connect with the golfer in new, more resonant ways. That’s why we’re creating content vehicles like “Callaway Talks” and others that are coming.

-Feedback Loops

We want to create an environment among our fans and us where our fans know they’re being heard and their input is affecting everything we do. And we mean everything, from product, to marketing, to sales, to service. Even to the Tour players we get to be part of #teamcallaway. We want consumers to feel that we are a different kind of golf company. A company that cares more about the golfer than it does itself. Hey, that’s a lofty goal and with it comes really lofty expectations. But, we’re committed to it.

And so with that comes some things that may be unorthodox. Yesterday’s announcement of our XBomb promotion on Tour is one of those things.

Here’s the story behind the birth of the XBomb (that sounds painful):

In October at a commercial shoot for our 2013 products, Luke List (@sirdoublel), Gary Woodland (@garywoodland), and Adam Hadwin (@ahadwingolf) and the Zoo Crew were sitting around the clubhouse at Colonial waiting for the final wrap. We started talking about the renewed energy from #teamcallaway on Tour and thinking of ways that we could get the group fired up for 2013 and get some fun, competitive trash talk going (this was even before we had signed Andres Gonzales!). We were just having fun with the conversation and a lot of outrageous ideas were thrown out there (for the record, if Luke List didn’t have 185 mph  ball speed, this guy would be an entertainer or work at an ad agency). Some of the ideas included things like having a WWE style championship belt for the most wins, a Tour de France style leader’s jersey for the #teamcallaway leading money winner (which the Tour is kind of doing this year!), or having running bets with players where players would have to wear mismatched colors or bad pants if they lost. Anyway, one of the ideas that got thrown out was doing a college football style thing where we’d reward good rounds or once in a lifetime shots (we had just seen Luke hit half a 6-iron 185 yards, so we were thinking of that shot).

And that evolved into our current XBomb promotion, where we will track all drives from our players 325+ yards this year and reward players with a bomb decal on their bags. Looks like this:

It’ll be bringing some of the college football excitement to the Tour players. And they’ve loved the idea. Loved. It. Totally unexpected, totally unorthodox, but exciting! We’ll be tracking all year on our various social media properties as well as on our own callawaygolf.com website. And we’ll be bringing this idea down to golfers too so they can get their own rewards for bringing it this year.

Our players have loved it, our employees have loved it, our retailers have loved it, and we think golfers will love it. Or maybe some won’t. But that’s okay. Not everything that comes out of the chaos of the Zoo Crew will be brilliant for everyone. That’s for sure.

Hope you like what we’re doing. Let us know if you do. And let us know if you don’t. Because we’re listening.

Harry

@callawayharrya

PS: One more thing. This week Nicolas Colsaerts hit his first drive of the year 403 yards. Yes, you read that correctly. 403 bills. We thought that probably demanded a bigger, more unique decal. So we created the mega bomb for drives over 400 yards. Looks like this: