Congratulations! You’re the winner of a list of exclusions.
Tuesday
May 15, 2012
I believe that I received this morning what may be the single most useless – and infuriating – marketing incentive ever crafted.
Last weekend, Golfsmith opened a golf superstore a mile from my house. As an avid golfer who’s had little time for the game during the past several years, this seemed to be a sign from the golf gods that perhaps I should recommit myself to the game.
So, donning my ugliest pants and my brightest shoes, I wandered over to their new store to see all the expensive new technology that promised to transform my painfully ugly swing into a tour ready game.
For those not familiar with golf, the game is extraordinarily expensive. New drivers typically cost several hundred dollars, and even putters have broken the $200 barrier. Now do the math. There are 14 clubs in a bag. This can get expensive quickly.
Golf marketers know how expensive the game can be, so it made sense for Golfsmith to send email coupons to local customers promising a 15% discount on their next purchase. On a $400 driver, this represented a savings of $60, which is pretty significant, and certainly enough to compel some vacillating golfers to take the plunge and drop a new stick in their bag.
Oops, not so fast, Tiger. If you thought you could use that discount coupon to buy a hot new club, you’d better take a mulligan. It turns out that there was an asterisk next to the promise. Some fine print that really mattered. The exclusions.
The exclusions listed all of the brands that did not qualify for a discount. And the list was extensive.
If you Googled a list of the top golf club manufacturers, you’d get a list that included: Titleist, Ping, TaylorMade, Nike, Cobra, Callaway, Mizuno and Wilson.
If you read the list of Golfsmith’s excluded vendors, you’d get the same list.
Which apparently means that I can buy anything in the store except for a golf club made by any major manufacturer.
I can’t wait to take advantage of the 15% discount on tees and ball markers.

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