Audi Links With Me & My Golf Social Stars For ‘Night Golf’ Ad Echoing Audemars Piguet’s Ryder Cup Ambush

While we now regularly see (often youthful) mass market brands targeting younger audiences through content-led collaborations with YouTube stars to drive engagement – either in the form of utilities (like make-up and fashion bloggers) or entertainment (such as stunt video makers and comic clip creators) – we can certainly see the tactical insights behind this campaign.

After all, Audi aims to position itself both at the youthful and the fashionable end of the accessible premium car space.

While golf (and its problems as a sport and a property) has long been criticised for failing to engage with younger demographics and for favouring old-school traditions over fresh perspectives and new technologies.

Plus, while unsurprisingly Audi is best known for its motor sport partnerships (such as Goodwood and Le Mans), the premium VW owned auto brand’s primary golf partnership is its title sponsorship of the Audi Quattro Cup – the largest amateur golf tournament in the world which spans 51 countries, more than 800 tournaments and 100,000+ players.

So the thinking and the fit behind this campaign certainly seems to make some sense.

As if one night golf marketing campaign wasn’t enough, luxury Swiss watch brand Audemars Piguet leveraged interest in the Ryder Cup (and ambushed two rival premium watch brands with official tournament rights: official timekeeper for Ryder Cup Europe Rolex and US PGA partner Omega) with a campaign that 10 of its ambassadors to the test by seeing how good they are at the game at night.

This campaigned, called ‘Midnight Masters’, was spearheaded by a central spot featuring an impressive ine-up of golf Audemars Piguet endorsers including recent Master’s winner Danny Willett, Ryder Cup legends Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and Henrik Stenson, as well as Ben An, Keegan Bradley, Victor Dubuisson, Bernd Wiesberger and Emiliano Grillo.

With each of the players set individual challenges on an artificially illuminated course, accompanied by some clever light installations, the message behind the nocturnal masterclass echoed AP’s motto: ‘To break the rules, you must first master them.’

Other campaign pieces ran across digital and social platforms – linked by the#MidnightMasters hashtag.

Despite its impressive 398,566 YouTube views (not bad for one of the more niche, luxury watch brands) and the apparent fun of a round played at night with glow-in-the-dark balls – we’re not sure this format will take off any time soon.

Although, we think short 9-hole speed version of floodlight, urban night golf – with a touch of the multimedia entertainment music and lightshow experience, plus viewer grandstand friendly double greens and tees – could be one revised game format to solve some of golf’s problems, bring the game into the 21^st Century and appeal to younger audiences with shorter attention spans.

We’ll leave it up to you to decide whether the new Audi spot matches up to last month’s watchmaker’s brand film.

But with just 2500 YouTube views in its first 48 hours, it seems to have some way to go to reach the same social engagement levels as the Audemars Piguet video.