Youtubers who get free equipment for reviews. What happens after review?

Anyone know what youtubers do with the equipment after they review it? Mark and Matt just got about 2 grand of clubs from Callaway.

Do they have to send it back? Can they sell them? What are the rules here ?

My guess is the majority of time they get to keep them.

I've done a trip here to Callaway and we kept all of the stuff they gave us. I've also done a couple of club tests and in both cases we were allowed to keep the clubs.

If they get caught selling them regularly my guess is they would no longer be part of any testing programs.Kind of poor form. At least in the immediate aftermath....i mean if you sell them 3 yrs later i don't think they'd care however

Good call, yeah that would be poor form. And I bet they do not want to lose their sponsorships (I.e. Matt Lockey with Callaway).

If you were a fitter, might help out the operation a bit to have all these new clubs coming in all the time. Let your clients hit a few that otherwise you might not have if not on YouTube.

also curious now, that you mention Callaway gives a lot of clubs away. Curious about percentage sold versus given away for free? Guess we’ll never know

Giveaways are a drop in a bucket versus volume sold. It's a marketing expense, and many would argue a necessary one. When you factor in their actual cost to themselves of manufacturing it's not that bad

My company samples products all the time to prospective customers.

If giving a free Mavrik driver to an influencer will gain you X many new incremental sales, the cost of that free club barely impacts margin

I quit watching a long time ago, but Lockey was actually sponsored by Callaway and would get stuff from them frequently.

Still is. Just getting more stuff these days.

They might be worth a couple of grand for you to buy, but the actual cost to Callaway will be a couple of hundred. Well worth it for the marketing exposure.

Honestly, I stopped really watching Crossfield. I still enjoy some of his videos but primarily go Rick Shiels because he is NOT sponsored by anyone and brutally honest... "why would I but this years model when last years performs better?"

Not to mention, he debunked the Mavrick driver going farther than last years model... when you are sponsored, that does not happen.

Crossfield, although affiliated, is very honest in his assessment of marketing claims. Did you not see the video he did with James Robinson where they tested 10 years of drivers? His Ts3 was mid to bottom of the pack and he didn’t care. It’s all strike.

I used to dislike shiels for his cringy clickbait titles and blaming left shots on offset but he has grown on me. I thought the Mavrik video was fantastic.

No different than working for the company on an equipment contract (i.e. a tour van fitter) or the company sponsoring a manager of a golf store, a local teaching pro, a touring professional, or a famous person. They all get comped equipment, it's part of the job. Usually the deal is they get to keep the equipment for the season and are free to do with it as they wish at the end of the equipment life cycle. That can mean until any new model is released, other times it means until that specific model is replaced. I would imagine YouTube celebs either keep the product or if they sell/fit, they just put into their demo pile as one of the fitting options. For people who just review, they likely have to send it back OR it is just the reps demo that they borrow for a day and send it back.

If they do get to keep it, I'm sure sending out say 30 drivers is nothing compared to the amount of people who will go out and try a driver. For instance, Crossfield has 42k views on their video of the Mavrik, let's say 21k of those go out and try the driver because they might be interested in something, if even 10% buy it after being fit and getting performance gains, boom Callaway just sold 2000+ drivers all because they sent out 3 free ones. Easy money and well spent marketing dollars. Heck, even a 1% ROI gives them 21 drivers sold, 700% return on the 3 freebies they sent out.

The drivers from the Mavrik video (Mark/Matt) were marked as Demo drivers, so I assume that's what they are. I bet they are used as demo clubs for whatever shop they're using for their indoor vlogs (same as most of the new stuff that they get their hands on). I highly doubt the clubs are just being sent to Mark/Matt to use for a vlog and then just sit unused in a corner somewhere.

Many times things have to be sent back, actually.

Small items and some things can be kept.

You can see in some of the reviews (Shiels) when they do close ups of the clubs they look used on the faces. That same club has been to several online reviewers beforehand.

I think you can tell who is being given the driver for free by their videos. A lot of them actually appear like a paid advertisement, and they are!,without any ounce of criticism. Then on the flip some of the guys you can tell are unbiased and just tell the facts and are not scared to bash the new driver.

Rick Shiels is unbearable. Thank goodness he is trying to get away from Youtube.

Been testing stuff for a few years for a certain OEM and they get me to test and report only to them. Not give public reviews, but take my experiences with the clubs and report directly back to the OEM. They allow me to do whatever I want with the clubs they send. I know it's a lot different then the guys on youtube, and the guys sponsored by certain OEM's (which is obviously more of a salesperson than a reviewer), but I do know most OEM's do this.

I do not really care about the opinion of a "pro" who shoots 90 in a Pro-Am.