Right now the PGA tournament is underway. It might have been a three man playoff. Its not – its a two man playoff.
The reason for this post is that Dustin Johnson was to be in the playoff. However, it was determined that when he put his club down on the hill with all the people around him, he had in fact put his club down in a bunker, and he was assessed a penalty, knocking him out of the playoff.
Why would this matter from a marketing perspective?
Because the tweets and online community is alive with their disgust. It doesn’t matter whether or not the rules would indicate this was indeed a bunker.
Its because the PGA forgot about who pays the bills.
The casual fan watches the PGA on TV – providing ratings, providing advertising muscle, providing the networks the ability to bid for the tournament. The casual fan can’t even being to figure out how a trampled partially green patch of bad earth is a bunker.
What the casual fan sees is a highly charismatic guy leading by one slender shot trying to pull off a wholly improbably win who is disqualified for a ruling so bizarre that even serious golfers are stunned the ruling was made.
What the casual fan will do is turn the playoff off. In this house the ruling was made and we’re now watching the Broncos Bengals game. Which matters to none of us, but no one could stomach watching a playoff without Dustin.
If a smart marketer had made the decision about the ruling this is what would have transpired:
- Ruling made – it was a bunker
- Marketing person says “on what planet”
- Ruling explained
- Marketer explains that all salaries are paid by the network who bought the rights. Playoff without Dustin will cause channel switching, hurting ratings, making network provide make goods.
- Marketer further explains the basic concept of PR – never pull a charismatic leader out of the hunt due to a ruling so obscure it takes minutes, not seconds, to explain it.
- Marketing asks tourney head to come on TV and say “although the rules were posted, it is our belief that the large crowd standing on what was ostensibly a bunker negated its status to “turf”. We’re keeping him in the playoff.
- Marketing team immediately puts up a site “funny moments of PGA playoffs” – and has this amongst other cool funky rulings.
- Marketing basks in the glow of goodwill and a high rated and watched playoff.
Marketing should rule. The PGA forgot that idea. Count ours as amongst the many TV’s not watching the PGA’s namesake tournament.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Nicely said. The PGA has been and will continue to be out of touch with reality and the “common” man.
Gavin and I had this EXACT same conversation while we watched. Partially because I had Dustin in the family pool, but partially because we disagreed on the ruling in general.
I continue to wonder if there were any marketers/network execs/what have you that brought up this argument but got shot down? While it is possible that we will never know, it intrigues me a great deal. Just blodder (blog fodder)…again – who makes the decision?
Love a posting that combines two things I have a great deal of passion for – marketing and golf. Well done, Ms. Ann. My only add is a great point made by Jason Sobel, who hosted the blog from the tournie for ESPN. And it really is along the same lines of your point, without the marketing spin. Fact – there are over 1,000 bunkers at Whistling Straits. Fact – most of them do not and did not come into play on any of the wholes for the pros. Fact – there may have been other players who had similar lies during the tournament but we the viewer never saw it, due to TNT’s limited number of cameras for Thurs – Sat coverage. Fact – with the highest viewership usually on the last day of the championship, and with more cameras, etc., Mr. Johnson selected a very dubious time to put his tee shot into one of Mr. Dye’s (course designer) diabolical bunkers for all of us to see or read about on Mr. Sobel’s blog. Opinion – one of the things that makes golf such a unique and wonderful, and also maddening sport, are its bizarre rules. And the learning for the PGA from this Championship, in my opinion, is to decide when rules are black and white, and when rules are subject to interpretation and that possibly the interpretation should be to strongly consider what is best for the PGA brand, viewership and your network partners. Mr. Johnson should have been allowed to be in the playoff. The PGA may feel great about its ruling, but their brand has taken a hit from the casual fan that they desperately need, and all anyone will remember from this event is not the talented German golfer who won, but how Mr. Johnson was screwed by a very literal ruling.
Ira, nicely said. I like the “best for the PGA brand, viewership and your network partners”. Much better delineation of the parties. Its just sad, isn’t it? It would have been so easy to handle “well”…at least from many of our points of view!