Golf Marketing Case Study

Case Study: Bag Amnesty

CASE STUDY: BAG AMNESTY

Summary

Crown Golf was approached to support The Golf Trust and Jason Roberts Foundation with growing participation in golf and making golf more accessible to people in the UK and across the Globe. At the time, Crown Golf was the largest golf group in the UK with 27,000+ members and even more causal pay and play golfers. We rolled up our sleeves and got our thinking caps on...

The campaign was a resounding success for everyone involved. A glowing statement from the Golf Trust Founder, Cae Menai-Davis below, expresses how delighted they were with the outcome.

Keep reading to learn more about this fabulous campaign and great example of Psychology-led marketing.

Cae Menai-Davis, Golf Trust Founder

“The donated golf bags and clubs are already enabling members of Special Olympics GB to visit local golf courses more frequently. Bag Amnesty equipment is also now in use by hundreds of school children in the UK, and the donated equipment we send to places like Grenada, Uganda, Romania and India will have a significant impact on the sport in those countries”

“The Bag Amnesty produced an astonishingly generous response from golfers at Crown Golf clubs, and we now have more than enough equipment to run our projects for years to come. It has been phenomenal, and I cannot express enough gratitude to all Crown Golf clubs, their members and their many visitors. Bag Amnesty will make a tangible difference in the world of golf”.

Our Mission

The Golf Trust promotes inclusivity within the sport and the aim of the campaign was to get golfers to donate as many unwanted golf clubs and golf bags as we could.

The Golf Trust then redistributed the donated golf equipment to inner city and disabled sport projects, and golf projects all over the world. Equipment went to Africa, India, Europe and The Caribbean.

The Campaign

The most active time of year for a golf club is Spring and Summer, when the sun is shining and the sport really comes into its own. Beautiful scenery and peaceful surroundings help to sell memberships. This is the peak membership sales period. Membership campaigns run throughout the year but a Marketing Manager with any sense will direct the bulk of their marketing budget towards the Spring/Summer campaigns. Crown Golf at the time was the largest Golf Group and gearing up for the Spring campaign was no small task. During our planning stages in Winter, we were approached by The Golf Trust about this project.

Initially we agreed to support the project with a few notifications out to members, it was a charitable project so we weren't about to invest any unnecessary funds into it. HOWEVER, after some reflection, I made one of the boldest and riskiest decisions of my time as a Marketing Manager. I proposed to the Directors, that we redirect the spring membership campaign budget into the charity project, instead of promoting our usual promotional campaign i.e. 20% off or 1 month free when you join.

My decision was based on three factors:

- We could make a positive impact on sport and the brand in one campaign

- Standard membership offers don't get press coverage

- We had a unique marketing message that no other golf club had

They all agreed and we enlisted the help of our PR Agency and a new Design Agency to work on the creative. We got together and we discussed the following:

- How do we get people to make the effort of rummaging through old sheds and garages and finding unused golf equipment

- How do we get people's attention quickly across digital media

- How could we visually catch people's attention enough to read about the project.

- How do we stand out from other charitable projects

- How do we keep the campaign positive and fun

After much debate we ended up running a campaign called 'Bag'. Bag was an old golf bag that had been abandoned in a shed. Our designers created a cartoon bag with a very sad face looking extremely sorry for itself. The digital advert was a few seconds long and it was an animated loop of a shed door opening, exposing a very sad looking golf bag covered in cobwebs and dust, Bag looks up longingly, at the glimmer of light coming through the shed door, hoping that he was about to break free from that shed and fulfil his life purpose of joining his golfer for a round of golf... but then the door would shut and the light would go out and bag would be left there in the dark again. Within a few seconds we managed to portray this rather moving (and slightly amusing) story. The image you see at the top of this page is 'Happy Bag'! This is Bag after he has been redistributed to someone that wants him and he's fulfilling his destiny once again on the golf course.

Decisions made based on Psychology, Emotional Intelligence and Human Dynamics

- Personification: Giving 'Bag' a face and a name helped to create an emotional reaction from our audience towards the campaign. In a slightly tongue-in-cheek way to made golfers think differently about the wasted golf equipment in their sheds. Our creative designers created a bag with a soft, friendly, likeable face that people would warm to. We also created animations to enhance the impact.

- Positive association and humour: It was really important to us that we didn't use a negative spin on the campaign. We were a sport and leisure brand, where people come to have fun and enjoyment. Charities quite often use sad stories to make people understand their cause however we were not a charity and we wanted this to be seen a positive project and campaign. Humour is common human mechanism to bond with another human being and to create likability. So we used a slightly humorous undertone to keep the campaign light-hearted and engaging, we also knew if we used humour then customers were more likely to share it with friends.

-Maslow's Morality and Esteem Theory: Maslow's theory, The Hierarchy Of Needs, suggests that to find happiness we have certain layers of needs. In addition to our more basic physiological needs, we also have the need to feel good about ourselves, to do good needs, to find purpose and to feel a sense of achievement. We made sure we exploited this opportunity during the campaign by communicating to golfers that we had a great opportunity for them to do a good deed, feel good AND all whilst getting rid of something they weren't using anyway. A win win situation!

- Familiar, Topical and Emotive Wording: We purposefully used the word 'Amnesty' because in February 2014 the Police were successfully running knife amnesties across the UK and at the time it was a word people were familiar with. The definition of an Amnesty is "an official pardon for people who have been convicted of political offences". The campaign personified the golf bags, suggesting they were sad and lonely. We played on the concept that golfers were guilty of abandoning their golf bags so by using the word 'amnesty' we were alluding to the fact that by handing their unused golf bags over they were being pardoned of their offence against their golf bag!

- Positive reinforcement and reciprocation: To reward positive behaviour, we added some more incentives. All golfers that donated got entered into a prize draw to win a trip to the Caribbean. That created even more buzz around the campaign. We also gave all golfers a £20 voucher to spend in the Golf Pro Shop. This supports Freud's Personality Theory, that suggests we're all innately driven by underlying self interest, of varying extents.

The campaign ran from 12th June until the start of the Ryder Cup (28th September).