What the Callaway and Good Good Controversy Can Teach Us About Knowing Your Audience

There is a difference between knowing who has traditionally bought from you and understanding who is helping shape the future of your industry.

And sometimes, that difference can cost you a lot more than a bad social media post.

Recently, Callaway Golf and Good Good found themselves at the center of a major controversy after a commercial promoting a co-branded golf driver showed Good Good co-founder and CEO Garrett Clark shoving golfer Alexis Miestowski to the ground as she reached toward the club.

The ad was intended to be humorous. It wasn’t received that way.

The commercial was quickly pulled after widespread backlash. And this wasn’t simply a case of one creator posting something without a brand’s knowledge. Callaway later acknowledged that the content had gone through its approval process. The fallout has since grown significantly: Callaway ended its relationship with Good Good and announced a $1 million commitment to organizations fighting violence against women.

As marketers, there is an important lesson here. Actually, there are several.

Mistake #1: Assuming Your Core Audience Is Your Only Audience

When brands know their audience well, they can create messaging that feels relevant.

But when brands know their audience too narrowly, they can develop dangerous blind spots.

Golf has historically been viewed as a male-dominated sport. So it’s easy to imagine how a creative team might have believed that edgy, exaggerated humor would appeal to its primary audience.

But golf is changing.

Women and girls are one of the biggest growth forces in the industry. The National Golf Foundation reports that female on-course participation grew 45% between 2020 and 2025, reaching more than 8.1 million golfers. Women and girls accounted for 52% of net participation growth during that period and now represent a record 28% of traditional golfers.

Earlier NGF data also found that women and girls accounted for 60% of net growth in on-course golf participation since 2019.

That means women aren’t simply a small secondary audience that brands can acknowledge when it’s convenient.

They are helping shape the future of the industry.

Marketing lesson: Your current core customer is important. But your growth audience may be even more important.

Ask yourself:

• Who is currently buying from us?
• Who is growing within our industry?
• Who are we trying to attract next?
• Whose perspective might be missing from our creative process?

Because if your marketing is designed only for the audience you used to have, you may accidentally push away the audience you need for future growth.

Mistake #2: Confusing Shock Value With Good Marketing

There is nothing wrong with humor, taking creative risks and yes, sometimes controversial marketing can generate enormous attention. But marketers need to ask an important question:

What kind of attention are we trying to create?

There is a difference between making people say:

“Wow, that was bold!”

And making people say:

“What were they thinking?”

One can build curiosity. The other can destroy trust.

The problem with controversial marketing is that once you release the content, you no longer control the interpretation. What may seem like an obvious joke inside a creative meeting can land very differently in the real world—especially when the imagery involves something as serious as violence against women. Before approving provocative creative, ask:

If someone only sees this clip without context, what message will they take away?

If the answer makes your team uncomfortable, that’s a signal worth paying attention to.

Mistake #3: Creating an Approval Process That Doesn’t Actually Challenge the Work

This might be the biggest marketing lesson of all. The commercial wasn’t simply created. It was approved!

And that means there were likely multiple opportunities for someone to ask:

“Are we sure about this?”

Sometimes the biggest problem inside a company isn’t a lack of process. It’s a process where everyone assumes someone else has already asked the hard questions. A good approval process shouldn’t simply ask:

• Is the logo correct?
• Is the product featured properly?
• Is the messaging on brand?
• Did legal approve it?

It should also ask:

• Could this be interpreted in a harmful way?
• Are we unintentionally alienating an important audience?
• Who is not represented in this room?
• Would we feel comfortable explaining this decision publicly?
• What happens if this becomes the only thing people remember about our campaign?

One uncomfortable conversation before launch can prevent an expensive crisis after launch.

Mistake #4: Forgetting That Your Audience Is Not a Monolith

One of the easiest mistakes in marketing is assuming that because something appeals to some members of your audience, it will appeal to all of them.

Men aren’t a monolith. Women aren’t a monolith. Golfers aren’t a monolith and your customers are not simply demographic categories. They are people with different experiences, values, and expectations.

A campaign can be designed for a young male audience and still recognize that women, families, partners, professional athletes, retailers, employees, and future customers may all see the content. Your content doesn’t exist inside a carefully controlled audience bubble.

Once it goes public, your entire brand is attached to it.

And today, your audience often decides what your marketing means—not your creative brief.

Mistake #5: Treating Representation Like a Box to Check

This is where diverse perspectives become incredibly valuable in marketing.

I’m not saying that every campaign needs to be reviewed by a committee of 50 people and I’m definitely not saying that brands should become so afraid of criticism that they stop taking creative risks. However, there is value in having different perspectives involved before something goes live.

Sometimes you need someone in the room who can say:

“I understand what you’re trying to do, but here’s how this could land with someone who doesn’t share your experience.”

That isn’t killing creativity. It’s protecting it because the best creative work doesn’t come from everyone thinking exactly the same way. It comes from challenging assumptions before your customers do it for you.

The Bigger Lesson: Growth Requires You to Look Beyond Your Comfort Zone

This entire controversy reminded me of something I see often in marketing. Businesses become so focused on their existing audience that they fail to notice how the market around them is changing. They continue speaking to the same people. Using the same language. Creating the same type of content and assuming that what worked five years ago will continue to work five years from now. But growth requires curiosity.

It requires asking:

Who is entering our market?

Who are we overlooking?

What assumptions are we making about our audience?

And are those assumptions still true?

For Callaway and Good Good, this controversy became a very public example of what can happen when a creative decision fails to account for the broader audience—and the changing culture—surrounding a brand.

And the consequences extended far beyond simply deleting a commercial. Callaway ultimately severed its relationship with Good Good, while the broader fallout affected retail and partnership relationships as well.

That’s the thing about marketing mistakes. The cost isn’t always measured in the original campaign budget.

Sometimes it’s measured in:

• Lost trust
• Lost partnerships
• Lost customers
• Lost opportunities
• And the time and money required to repair your reputation

Before You Launch Your Next Campaign, Ask These 5 Questions

Before your next big campaign goes live, take a few minutes to ask:

1. Who is this campaign designed for?

Be specific.

2. Who else will see it?

Think beyond your immediate target demographic.

3. Are we basing our strategy on old assumptions?

Your industry—and your customers—may have changed more than you realize.

4. Who should review this before it goes live?

Invite perspectives that can challenge your blind spots.

5. If this campaign goes viral, will we be proud of why?

Because sometimes going viral is great for business and sometimes everyone knows your name for exactly the wrong reason.

Final Thought

The goal of marketing isn’t simply to get attention. It’s to build a connection and the brands that will continue to grow aren’t necessarily the ones shouting the loudest or trying the hardest to shock people. They are the brands paying attention to how their audience is changing, to who is being left out and to the difference between creating a reaction and building a relationship.

Knowing your audience is important as well as understanding who you may be overlooking.

That might be where the real growth opportunity begins.