Taylor Made Golf Co.: A Drive to Win

One of the greatest challenges for today's manufacturers of golf clubs is incorporating all the current cutting-edge technology and materials while producing something that still looks like a golf club. A similar challenge faces the marketing department: How do you present that space-age device to customers without overwhelming them with the technology?Those are just two of the myriad hurdles being addressed every day at Taylor Made Golf Co. The Carlsbad, Calif.-based company changed the industry forever in the late 1970s when it introduced the first metalwood. Not only did the invention of metal-head drivers and woods save a few persimmon trees, it also forever changed the way golfers would purchase high-end clubs. The "buy-'em-by-the-sack" mentality of purchasing clubs in sets brought about a new era of selecting woods one at a time.And that meant that Taylor Made, and the companies that followed it, had to create new ways of presenting lots of single clubs at the point-of-sale. The wire-and-tube display that could hold a lot of pieces became the design of choice to show the ever-expanding club offerings.Today, Fred Z Havens III, product marketing manager at Taylor Made, is working overtime to present retailers with golf-club P-O-P solutions that are as far removed from those wire grid merchandisers as the company's Ti Bubble Metalwoods are from laminated wood-head clubs of just a few years ago.An Evolution"The strategy of the company has evolved a bit over the past few years," explains Havens. "The customer four or five years ago really was a younger player who was a better golfer. They were a low handicapper."But today, the target customer is probably a little older and is playing golf at a local country club or at golf resorts, he says."As the golf market has expanded and with the baby boom generation aging, we recognized that to grow our brand we were going to have to intentionally change our demographics."Taylor Made is doing just that through the design of its product, as well as the way that product is presented."In the simplest terms it's just a matter of using models and people in [marketing materials] who represent or identify with that customer," says Havens. "Instead of using college-age kids or tour pros in all of our ads and communications, we are now using women, seniors and people in their 40s and 50s who are obviously in that part of the population. We also show them playing on golf courses that might be more reflective of the country clubs or resort courses or places that these people might tend to play."The message also must avoid being overly technical, notes Havens."That is probably one of our biggest challenges," he says. "The Bubble Shaft is a good example of that. When we introduced it, we had developed something that, technologically, worked in ways that were different from anything that had been made before."Havens describes the science behind the wider shaft as "very complex" and says the company struggled with how best to present the information. Through a process of internal brain-storming, the company created a number of sales messages that it wanted to test on consumers."We did focus groups with a lot of consumers of all different age groups and different demographics and tested all of these sales arguments," Havens says. "And the outcome was that none of them got anybody excited. People didn't understand the messages. It was confusing and complicated."But something happened when those same people were handed the club with the new shaft. Says Havens: "They started saying 'Wow, this is neat.' 'What is this shape?' 'I wonder if it goes farther?' 'I wonder if it goes straighter?' And they automatically came up with all of the associations we were looking for and we realized we didn't have to say a thing. It really blew us away."It made our job easier in the end," he says. "We found that if we could just focus on [the shape of the shaft] and key on benefit statements rather than getting tied up in the technical features and design, then we could make an impression. It was that simple."Taylor Made's first display for the Bubble Shaft was a highlighter that had a 3-D vacuum-formed representation of the shaft. A club featuring the new shaft was attached to the unit, but placed much higher in the air than might be expected. "People would see the club on the display and be drawn to it so it could tell the story of the shaft," says Havens. "It was a very simple display, but impactful and it drew the customer's attention to the fact that it had a different shape."Selling the SellersThe primary retail channel for Taylor Made is the golf specialty store -- stores that can afford to both stock and display the wide range of the company's clubs and accessories. Green-grass shops also sell Taylor Made clubs, but they typically have less floor space for displays. You won't see the company's clubs in mass merchants or sporting goods stores that operate strictly on low price-points. "The one exception to that are a couple of [general sporting goods stores] that have [dedicated] golf sections," notes Havens. "These kinds of stores have made a commitment to golf, where they are carrying all pro-line golf equipment."For Taylor Made, working with all retailers is a matter of that store or chain maintaining the right image and presentation for the brand. The dedicated golf stores tend to have salespeople who are better informed about the game and the product. But the company leaves nothing to chance."We do a lot of training with our accounts," says Havens. "For example, we have our key customers come in at least once a year. It's almost like what Saturn does when they bring their dealers to the plant. We do a lot of that. We give factory tours to our retailers. They come here and they will bring their whole salesforces in some cases."Training on Taylor Made's product line is only part of it. The retailers also visit the customer service department to "meet the people face-to-face that they talk with every day," says Havens. "It's all part of building relationships and making them feel like a partner and a part of our business. It's not just us and them. We are all in this together."Taylor Made officials also work to make sure that communication with retailers is a two-way effort. Havens, in his role as P-O-P point person, spends a lot of time in the field seeking feedback that will enable the company to produce more effective merchandising. "We talk with our customers -- the retailers -- about how they are using our displays and what they would like to see in the future," explains Havens. We also look at what other companies are doing. So it is a constant process of trying to learn all we can and stay aware of any opportunity that might exist for improvement."To date, Taylor Made has not attempted to quantify the sales effectiveness of its displays. "Most of our information has been anecdotal," notes Havens, "because we just haven't come to that level in the golf industry." Many of the stores selling Taylor Made clubs do not have sophisticated front-end systems for tracking sales or inventories.But that is changing, too. Havens is currently working with one of Taylor Made's display vendors to judge the effectiveness of a display in a traditional test-control study. By placing displays in some stores and leaving them out of similar stores in the same market, the company will be able to judge the lift in sales that its displays create.Triple ThreatHavens is one of three product marketing managers at Taylor Made. Like his counterparts, he is responsible for a product line (in his case, it is putters) as well as a part of the company's overall marketing message. Havens' piece of the marketing puzzle is the creation of in-store merchandising efforts.Brian Fortini is the iron product manager and he handles mass communications -- public relations or anything having to do with TV or print advertising. As the metalwood manager, Mike Kelly also conducts the company's direct marketing: demo days, the Internet, infomercials, direct mail and the company's new ultra-slick customer magazine, Pure.Directed DesignAlthough Havens takes the lead on all in-store merchandising, it tends to be a team effort. When display producers are brought in to create the next Taylor Made merchandiser -- especially for a new product -- they are provided a complete design brief. The display is just one of the elements that has been part of the product development process. "The reason we incorporate P-O-P from the very beginning of a project [is] so our minds are working on it well in advance," explains Havens. "We think through the details, so we don't have to leave it up to a P-O-P company to bring us the perfect solution."We are the only people who know what a display needs to be and do and look like. And we spend a lot of time and energy as a group internally -- the marketing people and even the product engineers -- talking about how we want our P-O-P to accomplish some objective."The instructions Taylor Made then gives its P-O-P vendors tend to be specific. But the company does not dictate the design of a display."But we do spell out the objectives in great detail," says Havens. "Those design briefs are often very elaborate. We outline the specifics of how many clubs it has to hold, what's the price of the club, what are the colors on the club. We will incorporate input from retailers on height limitations, footprint and how it needs to interact with the displays we already have."At that point the project is offered to several P-O-P companies to start creating designs. Havens encourages the companies to come back quickly with a number of ideas in sketch form. He says he does not like to have a company disappear for weeks only to return with one idea. "I want the company to call me in three days and fax 15 rough pencil sketches to me," he explains. "From there I can say whether something is good or if they are going in the wrong direction."Although he gets phone calls or packages every day from companies that want to work with Taylor Made, Havens says that it isn't easy to make the cut. "I get calls every day," he says. "Many are from companies I have never heard of. I never had any idea that the [P-O-P] industry was this big."When a display company is invited to offer design ideas for a display, it is usually a result of printed material it has sent to Havens, or something he has seen in a trade magazine. And it doesn't have to be a golf club display."One of the considerations when we changed vendors [on a recent project] was that we wanted a different look," notes Havens. "We wanted a fresh design approach and perspective. And, too often, the people who have experience in the golf industry very quickly get channeled into [the mindset] that there are only one or two ways that you can present a golf club."Havens says that many of these companies "immediately go into wire and variations in acrylic." He adds that it has been more fun to work with vendors who have never produced a golf display. "They may have done something in some totally unrelated industry that happens to be innovative," he explains. "And, if you tweak it a little, it may fit with golf while bringing a whole new design presence to the golf store."

Taylor Made Golf Co.: A Drive to Win

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