Callaway Golf backfire proves again impartial comms people are needed in the C-Suite
The outrageous Callaway Golf ad backfire proves comms executives have not "stormed the C-Suite" as The Wall Street Journal claimed in June 2026.
In their "Revenge Of The Publicists" article, The Journal said comms officers have become "consigliere to presidents and CEOs, many of whom are now highly aware that the smallest of missteps... can damage their reputations and their companies’ top lines."
In reality, maybe a dozen companies were smart enough to do this.
Businesses have not stopped shooting themselves in the foot since that article appeared.
Callaway fumbled on a whole new level.
The 44-year-old company teamed up with buzzy content creators Good Good Golf for a co-branded golf driver. They released a radioactive sexist 60-second ad last week that was removed almost as fast as it was posted.
The spot "depicted a man shoving a woman to the ground after she tried to pick up his golf club," according to The Wall Street Journal.
Good Good Golf founder and CEO Matt Kendrick told the paper that the ad was supposed to be a parody of the horror film "Obsession.” Clearly nobody made that connection except Matt and the executives at Callaway.
What Kendrick said next is a big fat warning sign to legacy companies tempted to jump in with content creators who operate with looser guardrails:
"As we’ve gotten bigger and there’s more eyeballs on what we do, we need to think about every piece of the business from our communications and understanding we have more influence now, we have more responsibility when we post."
Callaway, on the other hand, first tried to distance themselves, saying they were disappointed with the harsh reaction and appreciated Good Good Golf handling the mess.
When the heat got worse, CEO Chip Brewer quickly issued a SECOND statement admitting "it was approved by Callaway prior to posting."
It seems they learned the hard way that you can't just hand the marketing keys over to Gen Z content creators and rubber stamp everything because it must be cool.
Until many more C-Suites are "stormed" by impartial comms experts, you can expect to see a lot more messes like this one.
