SMO Hits the Links

Golf ball manufacturer Titleist fails to find the fairway with SMO campaign to promote its NXT series of golf balls.

If you’re an SMO professional or interested in social media marketing, last week was a great week to e a golf fan. Not only did we enjoy a thrilling and dramatic British Open at Carnoustie golf links, we also witnessed the launch of Titleist’s SMO campaign promoting its line of NXT golf balls, one of, if not the earliest SMO campaign for golf.

At first, SMO and golf appear to be odd bedfellows. However, the more you think about it, the more logical this move appears. After all, golf features the world’s most viral athlete (figuratively speaking of course), is enjoying a renaissance thanks in large part to said athlete.

Let’s take a look at the Titleist’s campaign:

Overview: At the core of this SMO campaign is NXTube.com, the fictional web site of Titleist mascot Ian McAllister. Ian is an angry Scottish golf course designer frustrated at how Titleist’s NXT golf balls render his courses too easy. NXTube.com serves as Ian’s online campaign to remove the offending golf balls from the game altogether because “Golf is supposed to be difficult; it’s a Scottish game for goodness sake. It was never intended to be fun“.

Social Media Used: Blogging, Video Blogging, User Generated Content, Viral Media/Video

Four Things to Love About This Campaign:

1. Targeting Your Evangelists – Titleist chose to promote their NXTube.com campaign using offline media, including television spots during the first two rounds of the British Open. This is brilliant; Titleist ran their spots when hardcore golfers were most likely to be watching. In addition to being most likely to buy the golf balls, it stands to reason that hardcore golfers would also be more likely to email videos to their friends and evangelize the products.
2. The Name – The NXTube.com is a great play on the YouTube site name.
3. Highlighting Product Benefits – Overall, the NXTube.com website does a great job of highlighting the main benefits of the NXT Tour and Extreme golf balls.
4. John Cleese – Ian is portrayed by John Cleese, who is bloody funny. He was on Monty Python for crying out loud.
5. Brand Consistency – By appearing as a website designed in the late 90′s, the NXTube.com website is spot on as something that Ian would create. This makes the campaign more authentic and enjoyable.

Four Things to Hate About This Campaign:

1. Little to No Calls to Action – This is one of the things that bothers me most about the NXTube.com site. Compare that to the ‘Share’ button that appears at the end of videos on YouTube.
2. Poor ‘Virality’ – While funny and entertaining, the videos on NXTube.com aren’t compelling enough to convince users to pass them on to friends and family. Titleist appears to have made the common ‘SMO rookie mistake’ of thinking all they need to do is put their commercials online, and they’ll spread like wildfire. Brand managers need to realize that unless your name is Nike, Reebok, Budweiser, or maybe Snickers, you need to bring more to the table.
3. No incentivation – There is a complete lack of incentivation on the NXTube.com site, save for a specific NXT banner ad. The site never gives a reason for users to upload or pass on content. This, combined with the other negatives described above, contributes to the site’s biggest problem….
4. No Engagement – Perhaps the oddest thing about the NXTube.com website is that it really doesn’t engage users. The site has the ‘infrastructure’ to serve as the foundation for a great SMO campaign, only Titleist doesn’t seem to care enough to make it happen.

Conclusion – In a lot of respects, it has to be great for SMO’ers to see a company like Titleist promoting its products with SMO. If nothing else, it should serve as a testament not only to the fact that SMO has ‘arrived’ but its validity and reach as well.

However, you have to think most SMOers would want a better campaign than the NXTube.com to serve as a flagbearer of sorts for the SMO industry. The site is riddled with a wide range of amateurish and rookie mistakes that culminate in an overall lack of engagement with users and a shank of a marketing campaign.

jason

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