Golf Ahh, there's nothing like the sound of a well-hit golf ball. Unless it's the sound of ringing cash registers. Golf, as you may know, is a funny business. It's one that thrives on constant innovation. Serious golfers are rarely content using equipment with last year's technology. They are on a never-ending quest to find the grip or shaft or wedge or putter that will take a few more strokes off their game and make their play more consistent. The marketing "noise level" is high, and for every product that makes a profit, a dozen fall by the wayside. We've been fortunate to work with some of the biggest names in golf, most notably Callaway Golf, as well as some lesser-known but highly successful "niche" companies. We've done it all, from hang tags to television, and enjoyed every moment. In golf marketing, the stakes are high, but, like golf, it's a great game. Callaway Golf The character of Sir Isaac Newton was one of the best-known symbols in golf, but neither it nor the tagline, "You Can't Argue With Physics" existed when we first met Ely Callaway back in 1990. We were fortunate to start working with Callaway Golf just a few months before the event that would catapult them from a back-in-the-pack club manufacturer to the country's leading golf company - the introduction of the first Big Bertha Driver at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando. We helped orchestrate the advertising, press conference and trade show booth which set the stage for the star performer: Big Bertha itself. In the years that followed, we developed scores of print ads; dozens of brochures, catalogs, posters, banners, countercards and tent-toppers; a steady stream of press releases; and more than 50 television commercials starring Callaway spokesman Johnny Miller as well as golf celebrities like Chi Chi Rodriguez, Paul Azinger, and Jim Dent, and entertainment celebrities like Kenny G. Not to say the advertising was the only factor that propelled Callaway Golf from about $12 million in annual sales, when we first knew them, to around $500 million today...but it didn't hurt.