The Golf Industry Needs More Comparative Advertising

Comparative advertising… what is that? Well, you are exposed to comparative advertising hundreds of times each day. You are influenced by it, perhaps without even noticing the influence. Some examples include:

“the ______ has the most horsepower in its class”

“the _____ has the best gas mileage of all 7 passenger SUV’s”

“9 out of 10 dentists prefer ______”

And the examples could go on and on. Therefore, surely there must be hundreds of examples of comparative advertising in the golf industry. Wrong! After flipping through my piles of magazines and doing some online research I could only find one marginal example of comparative advertising and one quasi-comparative advertising example. The marginal example is FootJoy’s tag line “#1 Shoe in Golf,” and the quasi example is Callaway’s online advertisement for the FT-1 driver that makes the following statement (or is it a question?) “World’s Straightest Driver?” (Note: the question mark is actually part of the advertisement)

So, the question must be asked, “why aren’t there more comparative ads in the golf industry?” As a consumer I would love to see an ad that shows a graphical comparison of the spread of manufacturer A’s golf ball versus that of manufacturer B’s golf ball. Or perhaps a similar graphical comparison of identical golf balls struck by different drivers. The potential comparisons are endless. What golfer wouldn’t want to know if a Titleist golf ball or a Nike ball flew further and straighter when hit by a mechanical swing machine in a laboratory environment?

Golf product manufacturers that do take the bold step into comparative advertising must follow some important guidelines; therefore speak to an attorney before launching the comparative advertising program. You can listen to me discuss a few of the comparative advertising guidelines with Jim Blasingame on his radio program The Small Business Advocate®. Click here and follow the archive dated 09/06/2006.

I hope to write about comparative advertising guidelines in a future post.