Analysis by Trent Cundiff in SRM 435 (section 1)
I reviewed an article done by ESPN.com and Darren Rovell based on the Tumbledown Trails Golf Course’s 9/11 Golf Promotion fail. This golf course located near Madison, Wisconsin tried a very risky marketing promotion that ended up miserably. They offered a special for 18 holes of golf just for $9.11 on September 11, 2013. They believed that they would be honoring the people that were lost on that day but it turned into a major problem once their ad hit social media. The public was disgusted with the golf course trying to take advantage of a tragic day by spinning it off into a marketing promotion. Instead of the management for Tumbledown Trails realizing that a big mistake had been made by them intentionally or unintentionally, they posted on their Facebook that they have done it before and it is only meant for honoring the day. They even went on to say that they were “hurt” by the comments left from the public. This caused more backlashes from the public, including death threats left on the golf course’s voicemail. After the second wave of terrible responses, the management decided to donate the day’s earning to the 9/11 Memorial.
When studying this story the major thought that kept coming to my head was, “How many people did this go through to get approved?” I know a golf course management team is not close to numbers compared to an NBA marketing team but I believe red flags should have been thrown up from the start. They made one of the biggest tragedies in our American history into almost like a car dealership trying to have “An Independence Sale”. The actual idea going from the planning stage to the action stage makes me very confused to how it went through those channels without someone stopping it. Even more confusing to me was how when the promotion became negative, the golf course handled their crisis management very poorly. If you are going to take that big of a risk about doing a promotion based off 9/11, the golf course should have at least had a plan if things went “bad”. Instead of mending the public’s feelings, they became defensive that people had a negative outlook on the promotion. The first thing management should have done is tried to figure how to make this right to the public because their reputation is on the line. They may have been one of the more popular golf courses in their area and now they made national news for having one of “worst advertisements in human history”. I understand management believed they were doing a good thing and they could possibly get more attraction to the course. They saw it as a win-win from doing the promotion. However you have to scale the risk-reward ratio more than they did to see it might not be a win-win.
The relevance of this story to sports marketing students is that sometimes you and your team or peers might think an idea is good for a marketing promotion but you have look at the glass half-full. If this group would have just weighed out the backlashes it could create, maybe they would have not decided on this promotion. I also believe research should have been done before you try this idea. When I researched 9/11 promotions, other companies had tried similar promotions in other industries and negative thoughts were produced from their promotions. Either way, lessons should be learned from a major mistake done by Tumbledown Trials, which is that don’t do promotions on national tragedies or possible “sour situations”.
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Analysis by Ryan Kilmon in SRM 435 (section 1)
Tumbledown Trails Golf Course royally messed up with this advertising campaign. They ran n advertisement promoting discounted golf on 9/11 that went sour fast. I personally feel that they represented a day of tragedy unfairly and with little remorse. Sure, intentions may have not been negative intentionally, but the way they went about this was totally ignorant. The terrorist attacks on the US will forever be a tragedy to this country and this golf course simply neglected that by promoting and taking action with this marketing plan. From the get go they should have marketed differently.
Proceeds for the day should have been donated upfront before any threats started that the golf course soon received once the advertisement hit social media. Instead, I viewed this act by Tumbledown Trails as brutally selfish. I feel that they used the remembrance of 9/11 as a way to try to make money for the course rather than actually marketing and promoting a day to remember the victims that fell in the attacks. They could have promoted discounted golf in a way that would still draw a crowd, but instead they chose to use an actual price of $9.11 which I feel was unnecessary and crossed the line.
This marketing plan was clearly not thought all the way through before it was launched. National attention was made out of this occurrence and the name and image of the course also became tarnished, especially when the course tried to get defensive to the criticism being thrown at them. Marketing and promoting on a day with such emphasis to this country has advantages and disadvantages. Clearly the way this advertisement was pitched was wrong and should have never been followed through with.
This article relates very strongly to this course. I feel that this is an excellent learning tool to learn what not to do when promoting or marketing for an organization. All stakeholders must be considered within a marketing plan and I feel that Tumbledown Trails Golf Course neglected to take this into consideration. People all over the country reacted to this and I certainly hope this establishment will do a more intensive brainstorming before they launch any more marketing advertisements.
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