Consumers on Callaway x Good Good: Memorable for the wrong reasons

After the now-pulled Callaway x Good Good driver ad sparked widespread backlash, Zappi tested the creative with real consumers using Amplify and separately with Amplify AI.

Both found warning signs that could have been identified before the ad went live.

Zappi tested the ad with 150 U.S. consumers who shop for sports and outdoor products. The creative significantly underperformed advertising norms on appeal, likelihood to drive behavior, brand fit, relevance, believability and attention.

Among the findings:

• 23% felt shock, compared with a 2.8% norm — eight times higher than typical.

• 20% felt confused, compared with 4.8%.

• 10% felt hate, compared with 1.2%.

• Nearly one in three said there was something offensive, unpleasant or disturbing about the ad.

• About 35% rated the content somewhat or very inappropriate.

The reaction was particularly striking when broken out by gender:

• 37% of women said the ad made them feel more negatively toward Callaway, compared with 13% of men.

• Conversely, 63% of men said the ad made them feel more positively toward Callaway, compared with 29% of women.

The findings are especially notable as women and girls have become an increasingly important audience for golf. According to the National Golf Foundation, they have accounted for 60% of the growth in on-course participation since 2019.

Zappi also evaluated the creative with 150 synthetic respondents using Amplify AI, which provides rapid, directional consumer signals for high-volume social video.

The results:

• Creative Power: 1/5 — Weak

• The execution was described as “polarizing.”

• The physical comedy risked feeling “gimmicky or slightly mean.”

• The recommendation: “Soften or clarify the physical moment so it reads as playful rather than awkward.”

AI shouldn't decide what's culturally appropriate. But it can identify when creative warrants a closer look before it reaches consumers.

Brands are producing more content, across more platforms and with more creator partners. The content is moving faster than the infrastructure traditionally used to validate it.

Amplify provides deep consumer validation to understand how advertising lands and its potential impact on sales and brand equity. Amplify AI extends those consumer signals to high-volume social content where traditional testing may not be practical.

The Callaway x Good Good controversy is a stark proof point: the warning signs were there. The challenge is putting consumer evidence into marketers' hands early enough to act on them.