TaylorMade Golf Sues Nickent Golf Over Ad Claims
For the moment, Nickent Golf is staying mum in response to a lawsuit filed March 20 by TaylorMade-adidas Golf, which asserts false claims by its smaller competitor.
In the suit, filed in California Superior Court in San Diego, TaylorMade, which is based in Carlsbad, Calif., challenges Nickent, City of Industry, Calif., over claims in the latter’s TV and print advertising, and on its Web site, about the success of its drivers by tour players.
“Nickent’s online, print and TV campaign appears designed to lead consumers to believe that its 4DX driver is the No. 1 driver model on the PGA Tour and Nationwide Tour,” TaylorMade said in a statement. “The reality is that—by a tremendous margin—more professionals on the PGA Tour in 2008 have used TaylorMade drivers than drivers made by any other manufacturer, including Nickent (655 instances of use for TaylorMade drivers, compared to just 18 for Nickent drivers).
“Likewise, more professionals on the 2008 PGA Tour have used TaylorMade’s Burner driver than any models made by Nickent . . . Finally, while Nickent attempts to base some of its broad claims on statistics from just two of the only four Nationwide Tour events played this year to date, the truth is that at every Nationwide Tour event played this year to date, more professionals played TaylorMade drivers than any other brand.”
TaylorMade cites the Darrell Survey and Sports Marketing Surveys, which monitor equipment use on the various tours, for its figures. Nickent also cites the Darrell Survey as the source for its claims.
“At this time, we don’t have a comment,” said Jason Maloney, Nickent’s director of marketing, about the suit.
Nickent, which spent $2.4 million on U.S. advertising (excluding online) in 2007, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus, handles ad creative in-house.
“Occasionally fringe companies in the industry try to encroach on our territory as the No. 1 driver in golf by misrepresenting the facts,” said Bob Maggiore, TMaG’s vp-marketing. “Being the No. 1 driver model at a Nationwide Tour event does not equate to being the No. 1 driver on tour. TaylorMade has been the No. 1 driver brand on the PGA Tour, as well as the Nationwide Tour, since 2001. That more than qualifies us to question Nickent’s logic and judgment in making claims that are misleading at best, and blatantly false at worst.”
In its suit, TaylorMade is asking for an injunction against Nickent which would call for a withdrawal of current ads and “corrective advertising,” along with a measure of restitution.
Comment by Nickent Golf on 24 March 2008:
In response to a lawsuit filed March 20, 2008 by TaylorMade-adidas Golf Company against Nickent Golf concerning the success of Nickent 4DX drivers on the Nationwide Tour, Nickent Golf issued the following statement:
“Nickent Golf was informed Friday that one of it’s competitors, TaylorMade-adidas Golf Company, has filed a lawsuit involving our advertisement that a Nickent 4DX driver had finished as the #1 overall driver model at the Moonah Classic, the most recent 2008 Nationwide Tour. We are a small company with great products, and we wanted to tout the fact that we have a driver that is good enough to finish as the #1 driver model in a Nationwide Tour event.
There has been no misleading information disseminated by Nickent, as the Darrell Survey, the mechanism responsible for keeping track of golf club equipment usage at professional events, clearly shows that the Nickent 4DX T Spec was the #1 driver model at the Nationwide Tour Moonah Classic with 28 clubs in play. It was the first time Nickent has taken the #1 driver model distinction on the Nationwide Tour and it was deemed worthy of a small advertising campaign, especially since the event was the Nationwide Tour’s most recent.
Our advertising simply portrays what took place at the 3rd and 4th events of the 2008 Nationwide Tour season. Nickent operated within accepted advertising standards. The golf industry is historically rich with challenges from competitors on one another’s tour claims, so this action is no surprise to us. It is a compliment that TaylorMade would come after an up-start like Nickent over a truthful statement that our 4DX T Spec was the current #1 driver model from an event on the Nationwide Tour. We do have the right to inform the golfing public of this fact.
At the end of the day, we know what we have accomplished and how to get that message across. Our television ad states that we “have finished as high as the #1 driver model and the #2 overall wood on the 2008 Nationwide Tour, “and it stated the event at which this was achieved. The numbers displayed in the TaylorMade press release are irrelevant for Nationwide driver model counts, and it is our belief they did this in an effort to confuse the issue at hand. The actual driver model counts from the 2008 Nationwide Tour show a much closer driver model count comparison than was portrayed by the PGA TOUR numbers used in their press release. We have made our home on the Nationwide Tour and regularly tout the accomplishments that we have earned on this growing and popular professional tour. TaylorMade has been calling themselves the #1 Driver on Tour for years, and when someone finally came along and knocked them off that lofty perch, even if only for a few events, it obviously made an impression.
That being said, we have no ill will towards TaylorMade and we will continue to fight the rough and tough driver battle on the professional tours as best we can.”
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Based in Walnut CA, Nickent Golf is a manufacturer of golf equipment for golfers of all levels - from the professional tours to the beginner. At Nickent we know that every golfer is different yet every golfer demands the same thing - performance. Performance on the course. And performance from our golf equipment. At Nickent Golf, our entire development process is born out of a 100% commitment to performance. This commitment is driven by a dedication to advanced technologies and an absolute focus on design innovation. To learn more about Nickent Golf, please visit http://www.nickentgolf.com.