What These Wild And Crazy (Ad Agency Guys) Will Do For Adidas Golf!

Thanks to reader Stuart for Rich Thomaselli's AdAge look at the authentic outreach campaign by adidas Golf to circumvent the lack of organic social connections found in your every day television ads: send two finalists chosen unrandomly from an applicant pool of thousands who are will to do anything for a job working at adidas, and film the entire thing in a Survivor meets Big Break in the vein of Amazing Race social media campaign aimed at...golfers!?

Ironically, the two contestants -- Steve Olsen and Chris Dukeminier -- are from the agency world. Prior to the adventure, Mr. Olsen worked at Hiebing, a small marketing agency in Madison, Wisc., while Mr. Dukeminier worked at Wieden & Kennedy, Portland, Ore., on the digital media team for the Electronic Arts account. Both resigned their posts before taking on what is perhaps the world's longest job interview.

The irony!

"There is no question that working for an agency, specifically in digital, helped me land this gig," Mr. Dukeminier said via e-mail from Chanthaburi, Thailand, as he and Mr. Olsen got ready to go to South Korea for the next portion of the contest. A decision is expected Aug. 14, after the contenders return to the U.S., finishing up at Brandon Dunes Golf Course in Oregon.

I do hear Brandon is pretty this time of year.

Both men said they have been pleased with the amount of interaction taking place between advertising and social media.

"That said, I don't see epic TV spots ever going away or losing their effectiveness, but virtually no major brand can get away with doing just that anymore," Mr. Dukeminier said. "Many consumers like to interact with a brand via social media and learn about the brand through that channel as opposed to traditional advertising or marketing. That makes it crucial for brands like Adidas Golf to have a prominent social-media footprint."

That's a nice quote, but to get this job, we need more Ad-speak. Other former ad guy, show us your best stuff.

Said Mr. Olsen: "Social media is another touch point to reach consumers like print or TV. The difference is that social media is 24/7, changes daily and involves talking 'with' consumers and not 'to' consumers. This is a great space for Adidas Golf. Through my adventures so far, I have learned one amazing thing: the word 'Adidas' is universal. No matter what language, what country, this brand is global, and people are passionate about it."

Thatta boy. I know who just took the lead!

And adidas VP Harry Arnett, what do you say to those cynics out there questioning the authenticity of the campaign with two, gulp, "agency creatives"?

Mr. Arnett said he didn't think it made the "Wear in the World?" challenge (there is a customized website with this name that both contenders post to) disingenuous considering that with all the applicants, it was two agency creatives undertaking this challenge.

"Because we're actually hiring one of these guys to be our social-media guru, their résumés stuck out as guys who were media savvy," Mr. Arnett said. "That was really one of the biggest challenges -- the way we wanted to use social media and authenticity, we didn't try to necessarily find somebody who worked at an agency, we just wanted guys who were media savvy and could think on their feet and think quickly."

Or, do just about anything in front of a camera...love the background banner. It screams authenticity!



"Groove rule confusion leads to misguided DQ"

E. Michael Johnson tells us about the latest groove rule change debacle, this time on the Duramed Futures Tour where 18-year-old Sarah Brown was DQ'd for having an illegal wedge that it turns out wasn't non-conforming. Thanks to reader Troglodyte for raising my blood pressure and finding this.

Goldman Lining Up Sea Island Suitors

Gosh, just the thought makes you want to be part of the scene there.

Gene Yasuda reports that the popular folks at Goldman Sachs have ID'd possible buyers for Sea Island. They might want to check out the comments in this thread to see what they're buying into.

I Demand A Restoration…

 …Of Rolling Hills to its Bushwood CC days. After reading Brian Wacker's write-up on the place, I feel this is a national treasure and should be treated as such! Put back the clubhouse and caddyshack to the way Harold Ramis envisioned it!

"As the use of golf carts became universal, par threes lost their major appeal—shorter walking distances."

I'm a little behind in my reading, so I just saw Jeff Neuman's WSJ call for more par-3 courses.

Yet short courses have struggled in the marketplace recently. According to the National Golf Foundation, executive and par-three layouts make up 9% of the nation's courses but accounted for 22% of course closings in 2009.

I learned the game at a nine-hole course surrounding a driving range. I spent many hot afternoons going around and around the place, even playing through a partial solar eclipse one summer. The course is long gone, but some of my lost Top-Flites are surely still there, quietly testing the half-life of Surlyn.

Such courses dotted the landscape in the 1950s and '60s, providing entry-level golf after a period when few 18s were built because of the Depression and two wars. Geoffrey Cornish, the 95-year-old dean of American golf architects, owned a flood-lit pitch-and-putt course in Shrewsbury, Mass., and laid out and built a slew of them for clients up and down the East Coast. Then the boom stopped, Mr. Cornish recalled: "As the use of golf carts became universal, par threes lost their major appeal—shorter walking distances.

“Where there was competition, there was no degradation in audience."

SBJ's John Ourand asks TV execs if the 2.1, all time low final round Open Championship rating was a product of the move to cable and ESPN. No one is alarmed.

“One event with no American in the hunt is not a reliable sample. We can’t take anything from it,” Hancock said. “We’re not alarmed, by any means.”

Hancock’s view was echoed by others. The majority believe that this year’s Open certainly would have flirted with record-low numbers even if ABC had carried it. The tournament was a dud for American audiences. It featured a virtual unknown in Oosthuizen running away with the victory. It added up to an anemic final day rating of 2.1, which is off by a whopping 44 percent from last year, when U.S. golfing legend Tom Watson was in the mix.

But more importantly, audience demo quality was high at the end, at least if you are going for the divorced mid-50s, yacht-owning sector. This from Louis Oosthuizen in John Strege's weekly roundup:

"I got a call from Mr. Greg Norman and he said something that I will remember for the rest of my life. He said I am the first person to get him to watch a full round of golf on television. He watched my first shot (on Sunday) to my last and couldn't leave the couch." -- British Open winner Louis Oosthuizen

"And he calls himself a proud Australian.

Nick Tabakoff in the Herald Sun looks at Greg Norman's handling of his design office closure and questions about termination pay for his staff.

The ex-employee also said that while the Sydney office had fewer than 15 staff, it was "part of a larger company that employs about 40 people globally".

Norman was at the top of the latest BRW Sports Rich List, earning $15 million last year, largely because of the successful golf course design company.

Fair Work Australia guidelines specify redundancy payments are required to be made to terminated staff of a company with "15 or more employees".

Many Australian companies have historically chosen to pay four weeks' redundancy pay for every year of service, which would have allowed Norman's longest-serving ex-member of staff to be paid 40 weeks' redundancy.

Even baseline new national employment standards provide for a minimum 12-16 weeks' redundancy for staff of companies of 15 staff or more.

But Mr Steven said he received a "letter of termination" delivered in person by company vice-president, Jason McCoy, on April 30 - the day he was made redundant.

"It said I would just get statutory entitlements," he said. "It didn't even state I was being made redundant. It just said my termination was effective immediately."

"Oh, so five more weeks until we pretend to be excited about the FedEx Cup?"

After the Canadian Open and as the playoffs loom, the SI/golf.com gang is really excited about the FedEx Cup points race and the potential for a renewal in the next TV deal.

Van Sickle: The PGA Tour will do what it has to do to sell the next TV deal. If TV doesn't want it, they'll have to get rid of it. I know the other events would like to strangle it, as sponsors who spend big money to promote their own companies get FedEx signs jammed down their throats at their own tournaments. I'm not sure I'd put up with that if I was a sponsor.

Lipsey: I think FedEx will do away with it. Can't fathom them paying another $30-40 million to sponsor it. If the Tour can find another sponsor at that level, hats off to Tim Finchem.

Van Sickle: Rick's right. It's hard to see them or anyone else dropping $300 million over six years to sponsor this thing. Other than forcing top players to play and having some exciting individual tournament finishes (which any tournament could have), the FedEx Cup "race" has been a dud from Day One.

This all reminds me that I read a most enjoyable USA Today/Nate Ryan story while on vacation about the demise of NASCAR and it's "Chase" structure no longer exciting fans for all of the same reasons that the PGA Tour playoffs are boring. It's a non-playoff.

The playoffs have had a positive impact on the viewership in other sports. The NFL (102%), NBA (158%) and Major League Baseball (425%) all posting large postseason ratings gains over the regular season last year. All three leagues posted a triple-digit gain over the regular season with a championship game or series. In NASCAR, the 10 Chase events last year shown on ABC earned a 3.5 rating that was down from Fox's 5.1 during the first 13 races and was a drop from 3.8 during the 2008 Chase.

Julie Sobieski, ESPN's vice president of programming & acquisitions who handles its business relationship with NASCAR, says the network believes there'd be an opportunity for increases in NASCAR viewership with a format change. ESPN and ABC broadcast the final 17 races of the season, starting with Sunday's Brickyard.

"Anything that really puts the emphasis on winning in every race throughout those playoffs increases the drama for fans, knowing everything is on the line every single race," she said. "That's something we support as an opportunity to get the NASCAR fans excited again and the casual sports fan as well."

Will a television executive will tell the PGA Tour the same thing about their so-called playoffs?

"If Seve cannot come to us, we must go to him."

John Huggan makes a worthy suggestion regarding Seve and a proper way to honor him. It's not what the cancelled Champions Challenge might have been, but it's something:

The European Tour must step in now and arrange an official Seniors event in the week before the upcoming Ryder Cup. There is still time, sponsors can still be found (how about the Bank of Santander?) and it can be done.

Held at Pedrena, Seve's home course, the tournament would surely attract a field worthy of his position as European golf's most historically significant practitioner since the Second World War. Indeed, it is hard to imagine any of his colleagues passing up the chance to pay tribute to their stricken colleague and hero. Even the less-enlightened must realise that, through his so vividly capturing the imagination of public and sponsors alike, their bank balances are today bigger than they might otherwise be. So the great man deserves nothing less than their undying respect and gratitude. As a former boss of mine used to say as he dished out assignments: "Get it bloody done!"

Congressional Opens To Reviews

AP's Ben Nuckols writes about the re-opening of Congressional and its new greens. I thought this was interesting:

Ben Brundred Jr., co-chairman of Congressional's U.S. Open committee, declined to say how much the changes cost. He did say that members paid to rebuild the greens and that all other costs were split between Congressional and the USGA.

"Only, and I mean only, at St. Andrews."

Steve Elling asks why the R&A didn't use this year's Open to announce a return to St. Andrews in 2015 despite the unanimous desire to return ASAP.

Inside, with a window open on the ground floor of his rented home for the week, was Davis Love and his wife, watching the telly. One playful writer stuck his head in the window, and in a kid's falsetto voice, said, "Mr. Love, Mr. Love, can I please have your autograph?"

Love looked across the room and recognized the source, then hilariously shot back, "After the round, boys, after the round."

Only, and I mean only, at St. Andrews.

For largely undisclosed reasons, Royal & Ancient officials haven't yet declared where they will play the 2015 British Open, and the general public assumption is that the host organization will continue its five-year migration to the Old Course, the game's Lourdes, Mecca and Sistine Chapel rolled into one package. It's even located just outside the backdoor of the R&A headquarters.

But renewing the timeline is apparently a big assumption, even though the Open has been staged at St. Andrews in 2000, 2005, 2010 and everybody seems to love the rhyme, reason and rhythm of the five-year plan.

"With regard to the 2015 question, I seem to be getting asked this a huge amount the last couple of days," R&A chief Peter Dawson said this week when pressed for an answer. "I don't know why people are asking it. Is there a hare running on this one?"

 You do have to wonder, unless the R&A saw what happened at Pebble Beach this year when a premature announcement of a 2019 return overshadowed the 2017 news about Erin Hills. Then again, The Old Course getting another Open is not exactly going to stun anyone.

It was also asked of Dawson why the Seniors have never played the Old Course. But imagine how much fun it'd be to have two weeks there, with the Open and Seniors or Women. Of course, everyone in the media and executive ranks would go broke staying there for two weeks, but it looks nice on paper.

And To Wrap Up The 2010 Open Championship

Images from Darren Carroll's blog...