Bridgestone Golf: Differentiating a Brand

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

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.

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.

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.