Late November saw the launch of a new Golf Australia digital experience spearheaded by its core digital platform Golf.org.au.
Working in partnership with creative, innovation and design agency AKQA, the national golf governing body launched a new digital experience on its central owned media platform with the aim of enabling existing and potential golf enthusiasts to better connect to the sport and its community.
A key strand of Golf Australia’s mission to continue to grow the sport across the country, the new site is a core pillar in a strategy focusing on designing and building its assets in a way that moves the organisation to a future focused, digital mindset.
Golf Australia began developing its new strategy when it began a partnership with the agency in April 2019 and since then has redesigned the consumer interface with a focus on engaging existing and prospective golfers in Australia as well as those visiting from overseas.
As well as news, tournament information, results and player profiles, the new platform will offer inspirational stories, podcasts, a ‘where to play’ tool, plus promotions for kids and women’s programmes and competitions
General Manager of Marketing and Communications John Sutherland explained that amongst the key objective was to have people engage with the site for longer and to lower bounce rates, as well as inspiring people to take up or play more golf through stories like Hannah Green winning a major, or members themselves sharing their latest round on social media.
According to AKQA Asia Pacific Managing Partner Brian Vella, the web is such a powerful vehicle that it is critical the organisation offers a seamless experience to not only serve current players, but inspire new ones.
The campaign was created for Golf Australia’s CEO Stephen Pitt and General Manager of Marketing and Communications John Sutherland by a team at AKQA.
“We know people love checking their handicaps online; and the new site better supports engagement with other content and offers, such as our junior programs,” said marketing GM Sutherland.
“We hope golfers around Australia find the new site easier to navigate as a whole, easier to view on their mobile devices and that it showcases all the things we are doing at Golf Australia to improve the health of their game.”
The digital experience is the first stage of this strategy: part of a broader digital transformation for the organisation which will also soon see new marketing automation and digital asset management tools, as well as user personalisation across the platforms.
Comment:
The website launch was timed ahead of Australia hosting one of golf’s biggest tournaments in December – The Presidents Cup – so that through the new digital experience the rights holder can make the most of spiking in interest and engagement in the sport.
The Presidents Cup, which will see global super star Tiger Woods play as a team captain, will reach 800 million viewers around the world via live broadcast as well as 180,000 spectators at the tournament itself.
This partnership is the latest addition to AKQA’s growing global sports portfolio which also includes recent initiatives with the US Masters, the NBA, FIFA (see our case study on the 2019 ‘Offside Museum’ for the FIFA Women’s World Cup) and with giant sports brands such as Nike (see our 2019 case study on the ‘Air Max Graffiti Street Stunt‘ in Sao Paulo and our case study on Nike’s ‘Phantoms Of London’)
Links:
Golf Australia
https://www.instagram.com/golfaust/
https://www.youtube.com/user/GolfAust
https://www.facebook.com/GolfAust/
AKQA
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