Bridgestone Golf: Differentiating a brand

The Client’s Goal

To differentiate Bridgestone Golf from a host of competitive golf balls and squarely position the brand as #2 in the category.

Objectives

  • Educate consumers on how different golf ball constructions work best for different players based on swing.
  • Induce trial of Bridgestone’s family of golf balls.
  • Reduce importance of Tour endorsement in golfers’ purchase decisions – thus weakening Bridgestone’s main competitor’s go-to-market strategy.
  • Gain expanded distribution for Bridgestone golf balls.

Tactics

  • JDPR constructed a three-tiered business news pitch that allowed us to transcend golf media coverage and give Bridgestone a platform in national business media, overcoming the previous media objection we encountered that Bridgestone was a not a publicly traded company.
  • Our strategy began with a 3-city East Coast media tour, where we engaged key national media headquartered in Bridgestone’s home market of Atlanta (Bloomberg Businessweek, CNN); our nation’s political center - Washington D.C. (USA Today); and the world’s largest media market – New York City (CNBC, Fast Company, New York Times and Wall Street Journal).
  • Executive leadership/spokesperson duties showcased Bridgestone Golf’s Senior Executive VP Dan Murphy in one-on-one deskside interviews.

The Impact

  • In just 18 months, Bridgestone Golf went from an also-ran to the #2 golf ball in the industry, achieving 20% market share in golf balls in golf specialty stores.
  • On-course distribution increased by 250%, giving the brand a greater presence in golf pro shops than ever before.
  • Complete saturation of national consumer golf and trade media about the importance of ball-fitting.
  • Unparalleled coverage for the Bridgestone Golf brand in USA Today, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek and the 3 major national news networks (NBC, CBS and ABC).
  • Exponential growth in Bridgestone Golf website traffic and social media presence.