Ahead of the first Major of the year, PGA Tour expands its alliance with Under Armour and its flagship golf ambassador Jordan Spieth with a TV, digital and social media campaign called ‘Golf Season Is Back’.
Each year, PGA Tour Superstore allies with a golf brand to form a partnership campaign ahead of the new season and this year sees its first tie-up with Under Armour (and Spieth).
The joint ‘Golf Season Is Back’ initiative, developed in harness with agency 22squared (which has worked with PGA Tour Superstore since 2013), is spearheaded by a TV commercial and a series of short videos running on PGA Tour Superstore’s social channels.
The flagship 30-second TV spot, called ‘Line’ sees Spieth in-store waiting in line (queue) reviewing all the items he’s going to buy – until he realises he has forgotten golf balls.
Spieth is not only clad in Under Armour apparel, but he is also holding several of the brand’s products.
The ad was then followed by a further social spots, such as ‘Get Out There’, also fronted by Speith.
The ads are running on the Golf Channel to target the avid golfer and are amplified by social media support
Wanna meet @JordanSpieth?
Enter here >> https://t.co/hB13zT6GBS pic.twitter.com/Sk8vMjUlrl— PGA TOUR Superstore (@PGATSS) March 27, 2017
with other social and digital assets also driving viewers to the brand’s digital hub (http://www.pgatoursuperstore.com/jordan.jsp) to enter a competition to meet Speith in person (plus a chance to scoop a set of Under Armour and PGA Tour Superstore merchandise).
‘This was the best strategy to hit the target audience with our message, in the most efficient way possible,’ argues 22squared VP Mark Belot.
Meanwhile, a parallel Under Armour Golf ‘Ready On Every Level’ campaign is also rolling out through March in the lead up to The Masters exploring Speith’s pre-season training programme,
The work begins long before April. When it matters most, @JordanSpieth turns to Threadborne in the gym & on course: https://t.co/p4v6OqLoZ0 pic.twitter.com/7Z4jHIRh7U
— Under Armour (@UnderArmour) April 4, 2017
promoting the #SpeithOne
Worldwide.
A look back at the #SpiethOne global launch tour. #IWILL pic.twitter.com/gQ5gZOxvNY
— Under Armour Golf (@UAGolf) March 21, 2017
DOWN TO A SCIENCE.
The #SpiethOne is on sale now: https://t.co/tuwiy5ETah #IWILL pic.twitter.com/hkEyMfDnBW
— Under Armour Golf (@UAGolf) March 1, 2017
and urging viewers to shop Speith’s look.
First major One week.@JordanSpieth is ready on every level. Shop his look: https://t.co/CHNcUopFQd #IWILL pic.twitter.com/Cvtc9o1Ud4
— Under Armour Golf (@UAGolf) March 30, 2017
Activative Comment:
Sure, it’s that time of year where all the big golf brands are launching new season campaigns fronted by their player ambassadors: Callaway, for example, also launched its Phil Mickelson led new Chrome Soft balls spot the same week as the PGA Tour Superstore campaign broke.
But what is interesting about the PGA Tour Superstore initiative is the partnership strategy: the official PGA retailer linking with one major sports apparel brand per year on a joint campaign to raise new season awareness and sell product.
This is an approach the PGA Tour Superstore has used for the last three years: one which combines its reach with that of another big golf player in order to remind those who have hibernated through the winter that it is time to get the clubs out and get back on the course again.
In 2016, PGA Tour Superstore worked with Cobra Puma and golfers Rickie Fowler and Lexie Thompson,
and also worked with TaylorMade and Jason Day for a Father’s Day campaign (see case study).
This alliance approach is just one strand of the PGA Tour’s refocusing around partnerships.
Another example is its recent tie-up with Twitter as its exclusive global live stream distribution platform.
It is only a few months into this partnerships, but both organisations have already commented on how positively they feel about the deal.
Golf fans have been able to use Twitter to watch live competition for free – with coverage including the first 60 to 90 minutes from the early Thursday and Friday morning hours of PGA TOUR LIVE’s OTT subscription window.
‘The PGA has been a wonderful success,’ said Twitter COO Anthony Noto.
‘It’s exceeded our expectations both from an audience standpoint and an economic standpoint and built on the existing relationship that we have with the PGA through Amplify, which is the highlights business that we built four years ago. The opportunity for the PGA is to bring to the PGA fans — to golf fans — live programming when it’s not available on television…delivering underserved audiences of the content they love during those early rounds. We have over 70 hours of programming from the PGA (in the 2017 season) that we think has really delivered on the appetite that golf you just have but they’re not getting access to during the early rounds. It’s also a global product which we’ve been able to deliver an incremental audience outside the U.S. because of the fact that we are a global platform and not just limited to the United States, so it’s been positive in a number of regards.’
In reference to the future of live streaming of major sports events on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and YouTube, Sinclair observes that changing consumption habits mean this trend is growing and growing.
‘I feel like it’s really the consumers who are in the best possible situation right now. It’s definitely a buyer’s market at this point with all that competition out there. It’s a time to be a consumer.’
Links:
PGA Tour Superstore
http://www.pgatoursuperstore.com
https://www.youtube.com/user/PGATOURSuperstore
https://plus.google.com/u/0/117076228594668612211
https://www.facebook.com/PGATOURSuperstore
https://www.instagram.com/pgatss/
Under Armour
https://www.underarmour.com/en-us/golf/g/3gm
https://www.instagram.com/uagolf/
22squared
