About a year and a half ago, I went to TaylorMade’s 2012 product launch at the La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, California. I’d been to the company’s previous six launches and knew what to expect: the unexpected.
Over the years I’d seen them unveil a host of innovative clubs: wedges with removable faces, arachnid-shaped putters, stronger-lofted irons and, of course, the R11 driver which boasted an adjustable face and sole, moveable weights and, if that wasn’t enough, a white crown. Later it became a global bestseller.
Before we settled in to watch the presentation, the company’s Global Product Line Manager of Metalwoods, Tom Kroll, asked us to join him on the veranda overlooking the golf course. It was there that he unfurled a long green carpet that resembled a thin strip of an American football field. It measured exactly 17 yards, and Kroll, a handsome man with slicked-back hair, asked us to walk it off. He wanted us to understand what 17 yards felt like, because he said, that’s how much farther we’d hit the company’s new RocketBallz 3-wood.
Afterwards we adjourned to a conference room, where different department heads introduced their new products, many of which fell under the RocketBallz line. The guys at TaylorMade are usually a confident, charismatic bunch, dressed sportily in 100 per cent Adidas (their parent company), but they were noticeably nervous. On more than one occasion a representative chuckled when he uttered the word, “RocketBallz.” To my surprise a couple people openly acknowledged that they were worried the silly name might backfire.
Since introducing the groundbreaking moveable-weight R7 driver in 2004, the company had made very few missteps, a rarity in the golf equipment business. Business was good – really good. They’d not only survived the Great Recession, but thrived throughout it, slipping into the red only one year (2009, when sales were down two per cent). To their great satisfaction, they’d also been trouncing their rival, Callaway, who struggled under former Revlon CEO George Fellows. Despite all the good fortune however, I wondered if their luck had finally run out. Golf, after all, is a pretty conservative sport. How would people react to a club called RocketBallz?
About five hours later, after testing the clubs on La Costa’s Champions Course and exclaiming “RocketBallz!” after virtually every shot, I had my answer. TaylorMade’s luck was not going to run out. In fact, they were on the cusp of even greater success and it would have nothing to do with hitting the ball 17 yards farther (a dubious claim anyway as only better players saw those kinds of gains). Their success would have everything to do with the funny name. In a year when rival manufacturers released clubs named MP-650, SF-511, and G20, “RocketBallz” was refreshingly different. Just like the R11’s white crown which stood out at Tour events on TV, RocketBallz dared to be different. Not everyone liked the name, but it got people talking. It was viral marketing at its finest.
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