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Should We Have Made That Ad? Why Reputation Management is a Must - Epi 32 · WOI Unfiltered

• Jenna: Hiya. Emily Fisher: Hey, how is it going? Jenna: How are you? Emily Fisher: Good. It's been a it's been a hot sack. Jenna: It has, I know. We're officially in September. And this is because we've decided this is the first episode of season two of our podcast. So yay to that! all right, let's let's jump in because we have an interesting topic today. Typically, we cover a couple different things. We're focusing in on one space today, and that is on reputation management. And Emily Fisher: Your favorite topic? Jenna: and we're going to focus in on an issue that is happening in the media right now. It's been happening for the last week, week and a half ish. and it's involving good good golf and callaway. So those in the golf world will know who good good is. But for anyone who's not familiar, I initially was not familiar. I would refer to them as mainly as a content company. They started as a content company about six years ago, back in 2020. or you could call it a creator-led media company, right? They're extremely popular on YouTube. They've blown up on YouTube, actually. They have over 2 million subscribers. And they have expanded into selling a good amount of apparel. and equipment. Their products were sold at Dick Sporting Good, Golf Galaxy, just to name a few. they've had a relationship with Callaway since 2023. They had a PGA tour, title sponsorship. they have golf channel programming. So they have in their short lifetime created a really robust footprint within the golf space. and actually I think it's important to mention that just last year they received $45 million in investment funding. So that's a little bit of background on them. But they started as a group of guys making YouTube videos, and that is really why and how they blew up. So let's fast forward to today. They had that partnership with Callaway. They were collaborating with Callaway to create an ad for Callaway's new driver. The ad dropped, and within minutes, I mean minutes, it had horrendous feedback and was quickly pulled. And it has since spiraled into more than a week of crisis communications, massive media coverage, and controversy for both brands. So I'm gonna pause there, and ask if you can just give a little bit of light to the ad, because I think you're a little deeper in the trenches on what that looked like and the background and the genesis of the advertisement. Emily Fisher: Yeah, that part of pop culture I really have to snuff on. even Jenna: Ha ha ha. Emily Fisher: though I started golfing in 2020, but I also was new to the good good world. So it was a co-branded driver. So it's a good good and callaway co-branded driver in terms of the product, right, that they're pushing with this really scrappy piece of content. And I guess the marketing team at Good Good came to the powers that be and said, Here's the idea, Callaway. Are You aligned to riffing off this movie called Obsession, which has jumped the pop culture shark. That movie was made for two cents. Go out and see it. It's phenomenal. And it actually. Yes. Jenna: Wait, can you give background on that movie? Because for those of us who have not caught up on that pop culture wave, I don't know what Obsession is. I haven't seen it. I don't know anything about it. Like, what's the two second overview there? Emily Fisher: Yeah, these kids are these kids are blowing up in a much different way, especially the lead woman in movie but essentially it's it's it's a really deeper articulation of relationships It's basically about a a boy who's obsessed with a girl. Young 20s postgrad type situation in a small unidentified town and he just cannot muster up the courage to say what he feels to this this young woman. And And so he goes into a shop to buy her a necklace. He finds something like a wish stick or something. and he makes a wish. I I wish this woman loved me more than anyone else in the world. And quickly, She completely gets possessed with her own obsession and him. And tragedy ensues. The acting's great. The low budgetness makes you just feel so much more connected to the content. Anyway, it's so worth a watch. So here comes Good Good saying, I want to riff on this pop cultural moment. Make Jenna: Yeah. Emily Fisher: us even more relevant. By the the club itself, the new driver was supposed to be the article that drove the obsession. And so, therefore, the very first scene with within the first 15 Seconds is when the entire thing fell apart. A woman is grabbing for his club and they're on a golf course. He runs over, he shoves her down to the ground, and he says something like, Don't you dare touch my driver. It goes on for a full 60 seconds worth of content. As it turns out, the players in the content were also at Good Good. the man is the co-founder. And then there's a woman in it who also works at the company. And it is, you know, again, first 15 seconds, it is so obviously something that should have not seen the light of day Jenna: Yeah. Emily Fisher: or been ideated or, you know, any of it. So it kind of just makes you sit back and say, what happened here? Jenna: Well, an let me just so I watched less than 10 seconds of that ad. Less than 10 seconds, maybe five seconds. And it immediately made me cringe. Even if the guy had not pushed her, the aggressive nature that he spoke to her made me immediately uncomfortable. Emily Fisher: Yes. Jenna: So I'll say that. You and I have been in many a creative room, and a good amount gets left on the cutting room floor. So to riff around this idea and try to come up with something strong, like Fine, I get it. We are constantly trying to figure out how do we culture tap, how do we break through with something that's popular in culture? So Emily Fisher: Certainly. Jenna: I understand where the idea initially came from. At some point it should have been axed. It should never have been made. Certainly I I think our job today is definitely not to debate the merits of that, because I think everybody is in agreement with that. And you know, that is what it is. But in our our role, we wear many hats and one of the hats is certainly coming up with a creative and getting getting that pushed through. But one of our hats for as long as I can remember has been reputation management and being able to work with whatever creative team is developing content, whether it's an ad team, a PR team, a separate content team, influencers, whoever's Creating the content and saying, how is this gonna land and how is this going to impact our reputation? And to me, that's where things really fell down. And I think the interesting topic for us to discuss is as we enter this new era of people blowing up on social media, specifically through YouTube and TikTok. Emily Fisher: Mm-hmm. Jenna: You have a lot of brands who have shifted the way that they work with these companies, organizations, individuals, right? You have a lot of brands who are now not just going to them and saying, here's the exact brief, create this for me, but saying, take some liberties and create some cool content. And I think inherently there is a huge gap there because these are individual creators or small organizations who aren't built the same in in terms of having all those reputational checkpoints in place. And so it's it's pretty easy for something like this to happen, unfortunately. And it shouldn't be, because it's also pretty easy to stop. Emily Fisher: Yeah, well, and I know, you know, the the job of the vetting has to be really thorough. Even if you take how we work with influencers, you kind of have to do a pretty deep dive to make sure there are no skeletons in the closet, so to speak, and any skeleton that lives there is fine enough to align with your brand values, right? Like there there is this amount of going through the the ringer on it, the vetting process. It needs to be thorough from A to Z. You need to dig deep. Everybody has something, right? Which is the Jenna: Mm-hmm. Emily Fisher: unfortunate case. Now, how public did that go? Those are the things you need to ask. And again, like, can I can I adapt this? Is it workable within our brand values? That's the question at the end of the day. And that's even if you're just working with talent, right? You're not telling a story on behalf of the brand yet, but eventually that's what happens Jenna: Mm-hmm. Emily Fisher: next. And that's where good good falls down. Jenna: Yeah, and I think that this is the thing is like the reputation management infrastructure needs to grow with a company. So if you Emily Fisher: Mm-hmm. Jenna: look at the role of a Calway when partnering with a content creator, if CalAway is funding the piece of content, then it is their responsibility to not just make sure that the creator aligns with their values, but the content aligns with their values before it is posted ever. And I think that the responsibility taken by these organizations once this came out was not what I would call equal. So I think that that's something to tease out. but also then you look at Good Good, who I mentioned just had forty-five million dollars in funding. Now I'm I'd be very curious to know was any of that funding used for executive communications people and people who are responsible for reputation management and who understand how to do risk assessments for content, for creative, for partners, because those are so necessary and again those capabilities should grow with the company for sure. Emily Fisher: Yeah. I also think that you're looking at the youth orientation of this company. Like you said, Jenna, it's young, it's in its infancy. It's a six year old company. The C suite is sub forty, right? For Jenna: Mm-hmm. Emily Fisher: sure. the key decision makers, sub forty. And I'm not saying that, you know, age always correlates, but look at just the settlement that just happened for Facebook, right? Like these companies are growing gangbusters. And as you said, They're not necessarily keeping up with what they need to from that reputation perspective. They're certainly gonna learn from this, good because gonna learn from this. Now they're going to put all the parameters in place that you've outlined. but it's not without like tremendous fallout on so many sides of the coin, lost sponsorships, lost jobs. you know, to to name just a few. Jenna: Well, and I think that's why it goes back to communications always needing a seat at the executive table. And you know, I read an article the other day, someone was talking about the fact that if you want a seat at that table as a strategic communications advisor, you need to understand What is driving revenue? What are the headwinds? What are the tailwinds? What are all the finances? And I fully agree with that. And I think sometimes that is where the communications function can can fall down a little bit, is to not have all of that visibility. so I I you know, I think the argument for comms having a seat at the table goes two ways. I think it is very much incumbent upon the communications professionals to have that thorough understanding of business, but it is also incumbent upon the other executives, the CEO, the president, to bring communications in and have a seat at that table. If nothing else, it doesn't have to be for the big flashy cool campaigns that we all love, but it's for the reputation. Because you're looking at something like this, Callaway Emily Fisher: Yeah. Yeah, it's arguably more important. Jenna: I mean, you're looking at something like this and Dix dropped them, Golf Galaxy dropped them, Callaway dropped them, they lost the PGA sponsorship. I mean, the financial ramifications of what is going on right now is enough to completely shut down a company. Emily Fisher: Yeah, And and time will tell if it does. Yeah. Jenna: Yeah. Emily Fisher: To your point, Jenna, it it is just having a seat at the table. And if someone in reputation management had a seat at that table, what questions could be asked, right? What does this content look like without the parody context? What's the screenshot? Everybody takes things out of context anyway, right? That first 10-15 seconds, that that should have been really heavily scrutinized. What's the five-second clip? How would this look in a headline? And then you get into responsive customers. How are Callaway's female consumers gonna respond? How are good goods female consumers gonna respond? That that is just baseline. You know, there's a lot of chatter around domestic violence here, right? Like that is, it's Jenna: huge, yeah. Emily Fisher: very black and white in the video. So, how will domestic violence organizations interpret this? And ultimately, is what we're trying to do worth the risk? Okay, and that Jenna: Yeah. Emily Fisher: sort of is a halo on all of it, right? Because everyone's so hungry for attention. Is it worth the risk? Jenna: I think some of those questions certainly all of those questions certainly should have been asked. And I would add to that, when you are trying to connect to a pop culture phenomenon, I think you need to make sure that it is something that truly is as well known as you think it is. So exactly. So in this in Emily Fisher: Yeah. Ubiquitous. Yeah. Totally. Jenna: this instance, you know, is is The movie that they were connecting to, is that a movie that the Callaway audience is even familiar with? Emily Fisher: Honestly, Jenna, that's a great point. The only reason it's on my radar is because I have an almost teen. and and I do think it'll swell, but honestly, I wouldn't have known. And Callaway's audience is totally different. Yeah. Jenna: Right, if I'm thinking about and I'm I'm gonna stereotype here for a second, but if I'm thinking about Callaway's audience, I would imagine it is at least seventy percent male, at least. Emily Fisher: Yes. Jenna: and again, like are these men, even if they're fathers of children who are in that right age group, in the teenage group, are they sitting down watching that movie with them? Probably not. So if that's not happening, then they aren't going to get the tie into this ether. So Emily Fisher: Right. Yeah. Jenna: You know, I I think there's something there to to be said of like you missed the mark on audience completely. And Emily Fisher: Yes. Yeah. Jenna: even if it wasn't a controversial piece of content, that question needs to be asked for every single piece of content. Are we reaching our audience? The right audience that we want to buy? Emily Fisher: Yes. And from an apples to apples comparison, the creative on paper, it it wasn't even like the movies. It was just, you know, there was that piece too. But anyway, Jenna: Yeah. Emily Fisher: so short of asking all these questions, Jenna, what was the response? How did how did Good Good respond? How did Callaway respond? Jenna: They both miss the mark on the responses, too. Because that we've been in enough crises where, like, the response is your chance to redeem yourself a little bit. You are not going to get everybody back to your side right away. It's just not going to happen. If you have done something to upset enough people that you have to respond, one response is not going to fix it all. so so you're already at a disadvantage. Like that is just that's what it is. But Good Good's response felt extremely canned. What I saw from their initial response was that it was a social media post, just like words posted on a square. it did not feel heartfelt. It did not have any emotion. It should have at minimum been one of their executives on video speaking to this. it it just it didn't feel like they understood the magnitude of what was happening. and what rang clearly to me was they just were ill-prepared. They didn't have the right team to put together the right response. But similarly, Callaway's initial response did not seem to take this seriously enough. I I also don't think they understood the magnitude of it. again, this is where I put a good amount of the blame on Callaway because good, good's the smaller guy here, right? Like, did they create the content? A hundred percent. And and Are we all in agreement that it should never have been created? Again, 100%. Callaway approved the concept. They saw the final content. They approved the final content. So the the onus is on them. And I would imagine, without knowing the details of the contract, they funded the content. So again, the onus is on them, truly. and Their response was very much just like, yes, this was wrong, yes, should never have been created, we're looking into it, which is not enough in my opinion. Now, their second response after a while was really doubling down. This was wrong, people have been removed, we're donating a million dollars to domestic violence organizations, we've terminated our partnership with good good. Like then they they checked all the boxes. Emily Fisher: Mm-hmm. Jenna: I think it's debatable about if terminating their partnership with Good Good was the right way for them to handle this or not. I I completely understand why they would have. I also think though, it to me personally, it makes them look like they are not taking enough responsibility. They are saying, These guys did it wrong, we're not gonna work with them anymore. And and it doesn't say to me, hey, We all messed up. This was a big portion on us. We should never have done this. Emily Fisher: Yeah. Jenna: So that doesn't sit well with me, but I do think for a decent amount of consumers it felt it felt like an okay response. Emily Fisher: Yeah, I I agree. They eventually got there more. and I I think that's an interesting personal note, Jenna. I think you're also thinking, you know, big fish, little engine that could, even though that good, good has blown up. But it might have been nice to be like, we're a united front in the wrong that we have done and this is how we're each individually going to make it better. I do think like the people, like organization was left out of it, right? Like what about the people? Who wear the Callaway badge every day, you know, that are kind of dragged down into this as well. I I think that was missing from some of the response, too. although obviously it was a really an external communications problem. But yeah, there is definite improvement that could have been had just on the initial response from Callaway. and then some some of the personal responses from Good Good as well. The the man who starred in the content did get on video, Jenna, you know, as Jenna: Mm-hmm. Emily Fisher: you know, as maybe we would have advised. It was a bit belabored and a bit defensive at the end of the day. kind of to correct. Yeah, yeah. And it was, Jenna: And you're talking about Garrett Clark, who was one of the co founders, right? Yes, I did see that. Emily Fisher: you know, kind of the at the beginning it was a bit about, you know, what are the message points that are appropriate, but then he kind of went into like a frame-by-frame distillation. of the shot and even like some behind Jenna: Yes. Emily Fisher: the scenes outtakes that kind of added a little bit of levity to the the harder parts of the content. And so yeah, it was Jenna: Yeah, I I was just gonna say on his content, like I think if you or I were sitting next to him, we would in we would have said like, Okay, you got it in one minute, you're done Emily Fisher: Yeah, for sure. Jenna: Short and sweet. I think all of that extra it did a he made remarks even about like cringing and and having never wanted the I think he said something about never wanting the content to have been made. I just it didn't feel right. Emily Fisher: Where was the cringe in round one of editing, right? Yeah. No, you're right. Yeah. Right. Right. Jenna: Or in filming. In filming when you had to go push the woman. Like didn't that feel uncomfortable? Yeah. Yeah, I I think good intents but wrong way about it. And then their CEO also went on a little bit of a rant one evening on X. Emily Fisher: Yeah. I didn't read the the rant. What was the what was the Jenna: A lot of it was taken down. but it was, I saw a couple Emily Fisher: Okay. Jenna: short and sweet bas basically just saying, like, hey, Callaway, you threw us under the bus. which I again, Emily Fisher: Okay. I'm kinda standing up for yeah. Jenna: like this, this is one of those things though. If you're the CEO of this company, you may want to say that. And I might not blame you for wanting to say that. And if I'm your counsel on the side, I'm saying you're fair in saying that, but your job is to privately meet with Callaway and figure this out. privately and not post that on Twitter because it does nothing positive for your reputation and it makes it even harder for you to claw back in two months. So I wasn't surprised to see that after so they n they quickly let go of their VP of brand and marketing. Good, good did. And then after maybe nine days of this crisis happening, maybe a little more give or take, their the CEO who went on that rant and their president also stepped down. which is not surprising given where everything started to shake out. Callaway did let go of of one person. It was their director of content. again, not hugely surprising. I think to backtrack though, you made a really good point on it would have been nice to see a united front from these two organizations. And y look, we have n we're not privy to any of the conversations that happen in the background. How aligned they were at the beginning, who did what, who said what, we we don't have any of that info. But taking all that aside, it would have been nice for for executives from both companies to come out and say, we missed the mark. This content should never have been made. We fell down on both of our sides. We're remedying it in XYZ ways, whether that is letting go of certain people, reviewing and updating our processes. making donations to this and we will be doing blank blank blank, whatever it is. Hey, you know, Good Good's gonna continue their partnership with Callaway and they're also gonna create free content for this female focused organization to show that we support females and to show that we know we did wrong. Like there could have been other things that were done if they had stayed united. And I think it could have turned around faster for them and in a much better way financially for both organizations as well. Emily Fisher: Yeah. And when there's two companies involved or just more than one, it's a lot of finger pointing and covering of up of things. but to your point, Jenna, we don't know how those conversations went. But you know a lot of those higher up people had a front row seat at that content going live. I mean that that just goes without saying. Jenna: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean I think the net net as we talk about this is If you are a brand and you are creating content, you need to do your homework at the upfront, you need to follow the right checks and balances as the content gets created. And if you've done all of that, then you shouldn't feel the need to step away from a partnership or collaboration or a sponsorship if things go awry. You should be able to figure out how to kind of hold hands in those next steps if all of those checks had been in place. From the onset. Emily Fisher: Yeah, and I mean again this is rippling in media, right? Everything from the New York Times, certainly to all the reputable sporting and golf outlets online. so it is it is big news in the media world as well. Jenna, we often talk about brands in a more positive way who capitalize on brand to brand banter or things that are going on in the ether that are kind of jumping on these funny pop culture trains. Obviously, this is very different. we have seen a couple of brands jump on though. who who probably do have a right to play there if we could mention at least one of them. Xalias being the all female company that does the club head cover that's that's their whole business is club head covers for clubs. Jenna: Club covers, yeah. Emily Fisher: Yeah. And they put out a very pithy piece of women helping women content on their social media channels that kind of indirectly mentions Good, good and the way the dialogue falls. And then through a certain time in September, they're donating donating 20% of proceeds to domestic violence organizations. Which again, we kind of look at that broadly and say, Yeah, you do have a right to play there. You're you're in the golf business, you're woman-owned. personally offended by it and now you're you're doing this good thing. They are also being mentioned in these media outlets as well. So it's kind of good on them. The other Jenna: Mm-hmm. Emily Fisher: side of that is like, was that too opportunistic, right? That's a bit of a a question in the brain too. but you know if you could put a playbook on this type of controversy or this kind of conversation, it could be positive, it could be negative. The playbook states that other brands will jump in, and we've also seen that. Jenna: Yeah, I mean and I think it's funny because y you and I chatted about about Zal is Zalea? Okay. You Emily Fisher: Yeah, yes, I think. Yeah. Jenna: and I chatted about Xalia's jumping into this and my first reaction was, that feels really opportunistic. And I don't know if I like that. And then as we talked but Emily Fisher: I think I think it's fair, Jenna. I think it's fair. Got reaction. Jenna: as we talk about it, I mean You as you said, first off, they're getting good response. Second off, they are donating a portion of proceeds. That to me saves them. That that to me is like the piece that Emily Fisher: It's action. It's not just talk. Jenna: it's it's action and it's protection for them, right? Just jumping on without that piece would feel just fully too opportunistic. That part saves them a little bit. But then there's also the the discussion that we had with our client team recently, about, you know, is press that may not be wholly positive still worth it when you're a smaller company looking to generate awareness? And that is something that each organization needs to identify individually for them. So if you're looking at Zalea, for example, before they created that piece of content, I would have hoped that they had a reputation management team saying, okay. If people slam us for being too opportunistic, what can they say? What's the downside? What's our response? How do we, recuperate from that? And and then you go into it eyes wide open, hoping for the best, but also prepared for the worst. And so that's where, again, it's the cycle Emily Fisher: Yeah. Perfect. Jenna: of reputation management and making sure you're just prepared for what could happen. Emily Fisher: And again, that halo question of is the risk worth the reward? Jenna: Exactly. Emily Fisher: And and sometimes it's very difficult to have that crystal ball. And it's not necessarily an easy question. In the case of Good Good and Callaway, it it was an easy question. Jenna: I mean in the case of Goodwood and Callaway, it was an easy question. For someone like Azalea, probably not an easy question, but it seems like they're faring okay right now and getting, you know, a little bit of of publicity, which is great. Emily Fisher: Yeah, traction. Yeah. Jenna: so yeah, I mean I think we've covered it, you know. I think it's just reputation management is not an option these days with the boom of content and and the partnerships that are happening and Creators and influencers becoming almost part of brands in a way and co-creating products like you saw with this driver, it there's no option. It needs to be baked in. Otherwise, you open yourself up not just to media controversy but to tremendous financial backlash. Emily Fisher: Yes, yes. People controversy, all of it. And it has to be at the ground level. It just has to be from square one So Jenna: All right, well, this was an interesting one. We have to start season two strong and ask the question that we ask every single episode. Emily Fisher: Hmm. Right. Jenna: Which is what's our impact? Emily Fisher: I I have an answer. But you go first. Well, Jenna: then go. Please go. Emily Fisher: I'm I'm reflecting and I get it's not the end of the year, but you know me and September and renewal. It's like my it is sort of my annual renewal. Jenna: Mm-hmm. Emily Fisher: I I I just feel proud of what we have built with you at the helm, Jenna. And looking back on some of our goals this year that we are actually achieving makes me really proud. So I I just want to say thank you for getting me involved those many years ago. And I I just love it. I love this, I love you. Jenna: Thank you, my friend. That was very sweet of you. I adore you as well. You know that. and I am. I'm excited about what we've built and where we're going and some of the progress and movement we've seen recently as of late. I think i we've landed a couple cool pieces of coverage recently for some of our clients. Emily Fisher: Mm. Jenna: so I think for me it's just Well, it's twofold actually. One is continuing that momentum with our clients and being able to see us get the traction that they're looking for is really positive and and has felt impactful to me personally. I also have really started to discover a passion of mine, which is more internal calms. and have been having a lot of fun with that for one of our clients lately. and really just seeing the value of that more and more. So That has had impact on me. And I hope that with becoming more passionate about it, I can be more impactful for our clients. Cause I think it's it is really meaningful work. So those are my two. All right, friend. Thank you so much. We will talk soon. Emily Fisher: I think you're gonna nail that, Jenna. And I'll be right by your side. All right. Good chat. Bye. Jenna: Bye.