Tag Archives: advertising

by | Tuesday, September 22, 2026 · 7:11 am

When Brands Ignore Social Values

How can 15 seconds of content undo years of brand building? Good Good Golf discovered the answer after releasing an advertisement for its co-branded Callaway driver. The video, which depicted a male golfer pushing a female golfer to the ground, generated immediate criticism. Within days, retailers removed Good Good merchandise, Callaway ended the partnership, a television program was cancelled, and Good Good withdrew as title sponsor of a PGA Tour event. Callaway also acknowledged approving the advertisement and pledged $1 million to organizations working to prevent violence against women.

This case demonstrates why environmental scanning must extend beyond economic forecasts and competitor activity. Marketers must also monitor sociocultural trends – the changing values, attitudes, and expectations that influence how audiences interpret brand messages. A concept that seems provocative or humorous inside a creative team may communicate something entirely different when released into a broader cultural environment.

The controversy also reveals that brand reputation is shared across an entire marketing ecosystem. Good Good appeared in the advertisement, but Callaway approved it. Retailers, sponsors, media partners, and the PGA Tour then faced decisions about whether continuing their associations might damage their own reputations. A horrible creative choice quickly became a strategic problem involving partnerships, distribution, sponsorships, and corporate responsibility. Forbes contributor Kian Bakhtiari argues that when consumers feel uncertain about the future, they often seek comfort in familiar brands. However, familiarity alone is insufficient. Brands must provide emotional reassurance while helping consumers imagine a more hopeful future. Content that conflicts with those expectations can destroy the sense of trust that makes familiarity valuable. This is a cautionary tale for marketers. Attention is not the same as brand value. Before asking whether content will attract views, marketers should ask what those views will teach consumers about the brand and whether that message deserves to travel.

Discussion questions and Activities

  1. Which sociocultural factors and trends should Good Good and Callaway have identified before approving the advertisement?
  2. How did the relationships among the brands, retailers, media partners, and PGA Tour amplify the consequences?
  3. Was Callaway’s apology, decision to end the partnership, and $1 million pledge an effective response or could these actions be perceived as reactive? What else should the company have done?
  4. Follow the trend. Use Google Trends and recent news coverage to examine public interest in “Good Good Golf” and “Callaway.” What does the search activity suggest about how quickly a brand issue can expand beyond its original audience?
  5. Build the crisis timeline. In teams, map the advertisement’s release, public reaction, corporate statements, retailer decisions, partnership termination, and sponsorship withdrawal. Identify the point at which the situation became a business crisis rather than only a communications problem.
  6. Create a content-approval system. Design a five-step review process that Callaway could use for future partner-created content. Identify who approves the content, what questions must be asked, and which potential risks would automatically trigger senior review.
  7. Conduct an online reputation audit. Review Reuters coverage of the controversy and compare it with Good Good’s and Callaway’s public responses. Evaluate each organization on response speed, accountability, consistency, corrective action, and credibility. Conclude with three recommendations for rebuilding trust.

References

Bakhtiari, Kian (26  February 2026) 7 Cultural trends for 2026 and Beyond, Forbes; Deighton, Katie (29 August 2026) The magic number: $1 million, WSJ Leadership Institute; Greif, Andrew (27 August, 2026), Callaway severs ties with golf brand after controversial ad sparks outrage, NBC News Digital; Shanoff, Dan (28 August 2026) Good Good Golf’s bad bad week: Timeline of implosion following controversial Callaway ad, The Athletic.

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by | Monday, August 31, 2026 · 7:38 am

The Strategy Behind the Scroll

What separates a clever marketing tactic from a successful marketing strategy? A tactic might earn clicks this week. A strategy connects those clicks to customers, revenue, and sustainable growth.

The Rhode Island Small Business Development Center argues that effective marketing increasingly depends on connected systems. Social posts, advertisements, email, search, and customer service should guide buyers through a coordinated journey rather than operate as unrelated activities. First-party data strengthens this system by helping organizations understand, personalize, and improve customer relationships. This does not mean familiar tactics have lost their value. Email, direct mail, and social advertising are strong performers when marketers select clear audiences, integrate channels, and measure actions such as purchases or appointments rather than focusing simply on opens and impressions. A postcard with a QR code, for example, can connect a traditional medium to a measurable digital experience.

Revolt’s transformation into Offscript Worldwide demonstrates how organizational strategy can make marketing strategy more powerful. By bringing content, creators, commerce, sports, music, and other media properties under one parent company, Offscript can offer advertisers coordinated access to audiences across multiple channels. The structure supports their value proposition: brands can build broader campaigns through fewer partnerships. CMO Erika Bennett’s work further illustrates that strategy requires internal alignment. Integrating public relations, social media, partnerships, strategy, and business operations helped Revolt increase social engagement and views. Those results did not come from finding one magical promotional channel. They came from organizing people and resources around shared goals.

In the end, channels matter, but connections matter more. Successful strategy aligns the organization, its customer value proposition, its marketing activities, and its performance metrics. Without that alignment, even wildly creative tactics can become expensive noise.

Discussion Questions and Activities

  1. What is the difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing tactic?
  2. Why might three proven channels – email, direct mail, and social advertising – perform better together than separately?
  3. How does Offscript Worldwide’s organizational structure strengthen its value proposition to advertisers?
  4. Which metrics best demonstrate whether marketing contributes to organizational goals?
  5. Review the RISBDC’s 2026 marketing trends. Which trend would be most important for a small business with limited resources, and why?
  6. Conduct an online strategy audit. In teams, visit the website and social channels of a company selected by the team. Use the HubSpot customer journey guide to evaluate how consistently the organization guides customers from awareness through retention. Present one strength, one gap, and one recommended improvement.
  7. Build a connected marketing system. Select a local business and map five stages: customer entry point, data capture, nurturing, conversion, and retention. Recommend one tactic for each stage.
  8. Turn tactics into strategy. Design a campaign combining email, direct mail, and social advertising. Define the target audience, value proposition, role of each channel, call to action, and two performance measures.

Sources:

Ad Age Staff. (10 August 2026). Erika Bennett rebuilt Revolt’s marketing strategy. Ad Age; Herren, P. (24 April 2025). How Revolt is changing its business model, and what it means for its upfront strategy. Ad Age; Rhode Island Small Business Development Center. (12 March 2026). Marketing trends for 2026: What’s changing & how established businesses can expand their customer base. University of Rhode Island. Zhang, K. (26 June 2026). I’ve managed dozens of brand campaigns in the last few months -These 3 tactics quietly outperform everything else. Entrepreneur.

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by | Tuesday, August 18, 2026 · 12:21 am

Your Feed Is Not My Feed – Or Is It?

For years, marketers have been told that monoculture is disappearing. Instead of millions of people watching the same shows, hearing the same music, and seeing the same messages, algorithms increasingly create individualized media worlds. Marketers have responded with personalization using data, digital behavior, and AI to deliver different messages to different consumers. But what if consumers also miss having something in common?

The summer of 2026 offered an interesting counterpoint. Events and entertainment including the World Cup and major movie releases like The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day generated the kind of widespread attention that supposedly belonged to an earlier media era. Suddenly, people with very different interests had something to talk about again. This creates a fascinating challenge for marketers. Should brands pursue personal relevance or cultural reach?

Personalization offers powerful advantages. A brand can use consumer data and intent signals to make an advertisement, recommendation, or offer more relevant to an individual. Yet mass advertising can accomplish something personalization cannot: give millions of consumers a shared experience. Major campaigns from brands such as Coca-Cola, Apple, and McDonald’s can appear across television, streaming, social media, outdoor advertising, and other channels, allowing very different consumers to encounter the same creative idea. Perhaps monoculture and personalization aren’t opposites after all. A brand might create one big cultural idea while using technology to make its execution more personally relevant. That presents marketers with a new opportunity to create campaigns big enough to become part of the conversation, but flexible enough to make individual consumers want to join it.

Discussion Questions and Activities

  1. Watch the trailer for Spiderman: Brand New Day on YouTube. Do you think a movie or any other ad campaign can simultaneously create a shared cultural experience and deliver personalized messages? What might that look like?
  2. Is monoculture is actually disappearing, or has it simply become less frequent?
  3. Which creates more value for a brand: reaching millions with the same memorable message or delivering highly relevant messages to smaller audiences? What advantages does personalization offer marketers? What might consumers dislike about it?
  4. Monoculture Quest. Ask students to visit Google Trends and identify a recent event, product, celebrity, movie, sport, or cultural moment that produced a significant spike in search interest. Investigate whether interest was broadly shared or concentrated among particular audiences. If you were a brand manager, how could you participate in this cultural moment without making the connection feel forced?
  5. Same Brand, Different Feed Debate. Have students choose a major brand and compare the advertising they encounter for it across their own social feeds, streaming platforms, websites, and other media. In small groups, compare results. Did everyone receive essentially the same brand message, or did each student experience a different version of the brand? Discuss what this reveals about segmentation, targeting, and personalization and if one strategy is better than the other.
  6. Build the Hybrid Campaign. Assign teams a familiar brand such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Spotify, or McDonald’s. Give them a hypothetical $10 million campaign budget tied to a major shared cultural event. Teams must develop one big campaign idea designed for mass appeal and then create three personalized executions for distinct target segments. Have teams explain which elements should remain consistent and which should change.

Sources: Erich, Steve (12 Mar 2026), Why advertising is the last medium of monoculture, and why it’s worth protecting, Ad Age; Zuckerman, Esther (10 Aug 2026), The Summer That the Monoculture Made a Comeback, Wall Street Journal; Kapoor, Vibhor (4 June 2025), The Death Of Monoculture: Why Personalization Matters Now More Than Ever, Forbes Technology Council.

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