The Callaway Ad and the Starbucks Campaign: A Study in Getting It Wrong and Right

Before you ask whether a campaign will get attention, ask how the people you actually want to reach are going to receive it. That question alone would have saved at least one major brand from a very bad week.

On a recent episode of Pitch, Please, Cassandra Morse and Faith Cedela broke down two campaigns that landed on completely opposite ends of that spectrum. The Callaway and Good Good driver ad got pulled after significant backlash. The Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte campaign with Martha Stewart and Belmont Cameli got people talking for all the right reasons. Same basic marketing tool. Completely different understanding of the audience.

How Does Something Like the Callaway Ad Get Approved

This is the question everyone is asking, and it is the right one. The ad, promoting the co-branded Callaway and Good Good Quantum driver, showed Good Good co-founder Garrett Clark shoving Alexis Miestowski, a professional golfer on the Epson Tour, to the ground when she reached toward his bag, followed by a warning not to touch his driver. It was pulled after immediate backlash over the depiction of physical violence against a woman.

What makes this a PR story beyond the obvious is the approval trail. Someone conceived it. Someone filmed it. Someone edited it. Good Good approved it. Callaway approved it. This was not an accidental social post that slipped through.

"I just can't believe that they're promoting something like that," Cassandra said. "And nowhere in the CEO's message did they acknowledge women or that they're essentially promoting domestic violence. It's actually insane that it went through so many approval processes and they still put it out."

Good Good initially apologized and said the content did not align with its values. Callaway's first statement expressed being "disappointed" by the content, language that made it sound like something a partner had put out without their knowledge. Callaway CEO Chip Brewer later issued a stronger apology and specifically acknowledged that Callaway had approved the video before it was posted.

That response became its own story, which is a lesson worth internalizing. How a brand handles a crisis is often covered as extensively as the crisis itself.

The Audience Problem Nobody Is Talking About Loudly Enough

The creative was distasteful. But the strategic failure runs deeper than that.

According to the National Golf Foundation, female on-course golf participation grew 45% from 2020 to 2025, reaching more than 8.1 million golfers. Women now represent 28% of on-course golfers and accounted for 52% of net participation gains during that period.

"Women are really getting involved with golf right now," Faith said. "There's a huge gap in the market for women's golf apparel. This could have been a great opportunity."

That is the part that makes this more than a controversy. It is a strategy problem. The creative worked directly against one of the sport's most significant growth opportunities. You cannot say you want to grow the game while approving marketing that makes one of the fastest-growing groups in the game feel like the punchline.

Is All Publicity Still Good Publicity

Getting people to talk about your brand is not the same as giving them something good to say.

Callaway is deeply embedded in golf culture. The brand has been a staple for decades. Faith's take is that it will likely survive this, not because the ad was acceptable but because the roots run too deep for one campaign to sever them entirely. Cassandra is less forgiving.

"I think and hope everyone will always acknowledge it and remember it," she said. "I don't think they'll fully recover from this."

What is certain is that attention and useful attention are different things. The coverage Callaway earned this week is the kind that prompts boycotts, generates negative brand association and hands competitors an opening. Good Good has already pivoted hard, flooding their feeds with female empowerment content and videos spotlighting the women who work there. It is damage control in real time, and it is visible.

What Starbucks Got Right

The Pumpkin Spice Latte campaign pairing Martha Stewart and Belmont Cameli looks strange on paper. That is exactly why it works.

Martha Stewart carries decades of recognition tied to fall, home, food and the original PSL audience. Cameli brings a much younger crowd through his Off Campus following and his current cultural moment. Together they bridge generations in a way that neither could accomplish alone.

"Martha Stewart is not a Dunkin' Donuts gal," Faith said. "She's a Starbucks gal. She brings that polish. And then you have Belmont who is so hot right now."

The smarter layer is the concept itself. The campaign leans into the fact that PSL is considered "basic" rather than running from it. Martha gets the traditional hot version. Belmont gets it iced. The joke is about the drink's reputation, and the audience is invited into that joke rather than being made the subject of it.

"They're making a joke about it being basic, but they're bringing the audience into the joke with them," Cassandra said. "Whereas the Callaway one, it's like they're making the joke at someone's expense. It's the complete opposite."

Starbucks also incorporated real fan content and reactions into the campaign rollout rather than making the entire launch brand-produced. That distinction matters. Starbucks did not try to manufacture a culture around PSL. The culture already existed. They gave people something new to participate in.

The Question Every Brand Should Be Asking

Both campaigns got attention. Only one would want to repeat the process.

The difference comes down to a question that should be answered before anything goes into production: who is actually going to see this, and how are they going to feel when they do? Not just the intended audience, but the full spectrum of people who will encounter it, the core customers, the growth segments, the media, the critics.

Callaway had a room full of people who apparently never asked that question, or asked it and got the wrong answer. Starbucks had a room full of people who understood exactly who their audience was, what they already believed about the product and what would make them want to share it.

Getting that question right is the difference between a campaign people talk about because they love it and one they talk about because they cannot believe it exists.

Want help making sure your campaigns land on the right side of that line? Let's talk.

Want to hear the full conversation? Watch the episode here.