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Golf Illustrated OUTED

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JB

JB

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A few companies have emailed us with this. They got an email from Golf Illustrated asking for product sample.

Read the 2nd paragraph and tell us if you have an issue with this company now. This information was brought to my attention and must be made public. This is absolutely crazy to think that companies operate like this.

Here is the email:

As part of its new equipment section, Golf Illustrated would like to
feature some of the hottest golf products on the market today. In
order to have your company’s product(s) included in the September/
October 2009 issue, a product sample for photography purposes must be
shipped to the address below by July 10th. All products received by
the deadline will be included in the issue, as long as they are golf
related.

Product samples will not be returned but will be made available for
purchase via the online Golf Illustrated Pro Shop. If you have any
questions, feel free to give me a call or send me an e-mail.


We want to know what you think?
 
Well, you know, return shipping charges are so high, might as well just sell it instead.
 
Just a new spin on "pay to play" I suppose. They're figuring that cash-strapped companies can't afford to PAY to have their item "reviewed" or "featured" or "hot listed"- but maybe they can afford to give the item away and then the rag, er mag, can convert it into cash. EVERYBODY is hurting for business/dollars right now!

I always chuckle at the "Hot New Products" section of magazines in every field. The reason these particular new products are "Hot" is because the manufacturer or importer was willing to pay to have them featured.

Same ol, same ol- just a new verse of an old song.
 
Wow, that is flat out ridiculous. Hopefully no clubs are sent their way.
 
JB said:
A few companies have emailed us with this. They got an email from Golf Illustrated asking for product sample.

Read the 2nd paragraph and tell us if you have an issue with this company now. This information was brought to my attention and must be made public. This is absolutely crazy to think that companies operate like this.

Here is the email:

As part of its new equipment section, Golf Illustrated would like to
feature some of the hottest golf products on the market today. In
order to have your company’s product(s) included in the September/
October 2009 issue, a product sample for photography purposes must be
shipped to the address below by July 10th. All products received by
the deadline will be included in the issue, as long as they are golf
related.

Product samples will not be returned but will be made available for
purchase via the online Golf Illustrated Pro Shop. If you have any
questions, feel free to give me a call or send me an e-mail.


We want to know what you think?
Click to expand...


For someone like me the amount of People Golf Illustrated Reaches would be worth the cost of a couple of putters. Many "places" that do reviews often ask that they keep the material and give it away, but hey if they want to sell it and I can get a decent write-up in Golf Illustrated it is a small price to pay.

Now larger companies may have a different take on it, but Press in Golf Illustrated(even though they are not as big as they used to be) would almost be as good as a Natiuonwide player playing in the final round with one of my putters.
 
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Pinged,
I agree to an extent, yet those other publications you speak of swear by the integrity of their testing and do not then go and re-sell the products. Whether they are being honest about the pay for the grade or not.

As for your thoughts SSB, I agree with you on the smaller companies, but this was geared towards large manufacturers.
 
Just free advertisement for the company submitting (donating) the free club. As for the magazine selling the club, that tends to sound a little unethical, and would look better for the magazine if these clubs were donated to some golf program. Of course, good ethics, and a lot of golf related issues usually don't collide well with each other. I don't subscribe to, or buy any golf magazines off the rack, since all the info they publish can be found on WWW anyway. Plus I think most publications are biased towards their high paying advertisers. It's like they are a "written infomercial" for folks. If there is one handy while I am in a waiting room some where, I will thumb through the pages, but that's about it. :comp:
 
Wasn't aware that Dick Tater had taken over Golf Illustrated?:D
 
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  • #9
^^^^
That right there is funny.
 
Can't say I agree with it. Why not offer to return samples at the manufacturer's expense instead of demanding the manufacturer make the club a donation to be sold by the magazine?
 
Never heard of Golf Illustrated to be honest with you.

I am on the fence about the selling of the clubs, SSB I see your point as it would be a cheap form of advertisement. I guess my issue would be, are they even hitting them and selling them as new or hitting them and selling them at a cheap price. Just doesn't seem right though to me for some reason. Maybe they see it as "we'll review your clubs and make a small profit in turn our review will sell clubs for you". Of course if they give you a bad review they aren't helping you sell clubs and still making some money. I am sure paid reviews are common in a lot of industries, but is it a biased review if you are profiting by reviewing it? Seems to be a lot of gray area here...
 
It's more that it creates a perception of partiality. Not clear to me that there's any quid pro quo for a good review, since they can sell everyone's clubs, and surely there will be losers as well as winners here.
 
WSE,
Im not sure there will be. These do not appear to be actual reviews, but just photos of 09 equipment. But I guess we will see.
 
worst_shot_ever said:
It's more that it creates a perception of partiality. Not clear to me that there's any quid pro quo for a good review, since they can sell everyone's clubs, and surely there will be losers as well as winners here.
Click to expand...

Dammit, now I have to google stuff to see what that means, haha
 
JB said:
WSE,
Im not sure there will be. These do not appear to be actual reviews, but just photos of 09 equipment. But I guess we will see.
Click to expand...

Oh. Huh. So it's essentially a listing fee, and the price is the fair market value of the equipment you send. That's not as bad, but still a bit shady.
 
They're being up front with the equipment manufacturers, which is better than some might do. Are they being upfront with their readers? "Here are photos of equipment we got for free and will sell for a profit"? Somehow, I doubt that one.
 
Or even a note to the effect that the magazine is not necessarily endorsing any product contained in the list, or that the listed products paid a small fee for inclusion.
 
This is an interesting discussion and one that I may have a unique perspective on. Being a PR person for what I believe is a reputable, ethical golf equipment company, it is my job to not just let my client be seen anywhere. In the same way that appearing in a credible, well-established publication can transfer benefit to my client, appearing in a publication with questionable ethics and practices can also transfer its negative stench to my client. For that reason, Bridgestone Golf doesn't work with just anyone who asks. There has to be some sort of selectivity and good judgement.

It seems that the general belief in these discussion forums is that most magazines participate in a "pay to play" type of editorial policy, when in fact the majority do not. In the reputable national pubs such as Golf Digest, Golf Mag, Golfweek, Links there are no quid pro quos. Editorial and Advertising are not only church and state, but in some cases not even in the same buildings. Whether an ad spend influences editorial reviews is an age old debate, but you'd never see something this blatantly obvious. In regional magazines the practice of requiring an ad spend for product coverage, is more common. But I have never seen a pub using donated equipment to sell for its own capital gain. There is another issue here and that is retailer relations. Granted it may only be one sku, but how would local retailers and on-line etailers that do a tremendous volume of business with a company feel about getting undercut by a publication selling the same item. Since GI is not paying anything for the product on the front end, theoretically they could sell the product for as little as they like.

These are the issues as I see them. Perhaps smaller companies like SSB really do benefit from this type of policy, because it helps them gain some more limited awareness, but for an already established brand I'd be weary of participating.
 
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bstonerjk said:
This is an interesting discussion and one that I may have a unique perspective on. Being a PR person for what I believe is a reputable, ethical golf equipment company, it is my job to not just let my client be seen anywhere. In the same way that appearing in a credible, well-established publication can transfer benefit to my client, appearing in a publication with questionable ethics and practices can also transfer its negative stench to my client. For that reason, Bridgestone Golf doesn't work with just anyone who asks. There has to be some sort of selectivity and good judgement.

It seems that the general belief in these discussion forums is that most magazines participate in a "pay to play" type of editorial policy, when in fact the majority do not. In the reputable national pubs such as Golf Digest, Golf Mag, Golfweek, Links there are no quid pro quos. Editorial and Advertising are not only church and state, but in some cases not even in the same buildings. Whether an ad spend influences editorial reviews is an age old debate, but you'd never see something this blatantly obvious. In regional magazines the practice of requiring an ad spend for product coverage, is more common. But I have never seen a pub using donated equipment to sell for its own capital gain. There is another issue here and that is retailer relations. Granted it may only be one sku, but how would local retailers and on-line etailers that do a tremendous volume of business with a company feel about getting undercut by a publication selling the same item. Since GI is not paying anything for the product on the front end, theoretically they could sell the product for as little as they like.

These are the issues as I see them. Perhaps smaller companies like SSB really do benefit from this type of policy, because it helps them gain some more limited awareness, but for an already established brand I'd be weary of participating.
Click to expand...

Great post. Thanks for the insight.
 
Thanks for chiming in BSTONER. I was hoping you would.
 
JB, what does THP do with the clubs that are sent for the "shootouts"? Just curious.
 
Sends them back to the companies. Or if the companies would like us too, uses them as a giveaway prize for a contest.
 
seems a bit shady to me. Keeping the club to GIVE away is good customer focussed marketing. SELLING the clubs is a bit low to me....presumably though it would just be one club, not a continuous giving of clubs to sell indefinately.

also, whilst i respect bstoners views tremendously, i cannot agree with what he said. To me it is clear as night and day that money paid to some mags (perhaps ones that do "hot lists"), does result in better points. This may not be the fault of the golf company, but it does seem to happen. I know that golf is often about feel, but imo titleist has not produced a product worthy of going near other than to test since i started playing (1.5 years) apart from the Pro V1...and even that has better competitors. Yet Acushnet products score extremely highly. Like i say, i accept some people will think titleist is awesome....but when zero (yes zero) out of the 10 or so golfers i play with regularly rate titleist - most are 5 to 15 handicappers.....percentages say something is up with some magazines ratings.

Again, that is not the companies fault though i guess.
(went on a little rant there!! sorry bout that)
 
Keep in mind Paul, that there is a category in their hot lists called "Demand" and if a company gets 5 stars in that, then it moves them up. It is not necessarily about paying for gold.
 
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