Guest blog: How golf is providing a new brand experience, away from the Fairway – PVE

Provision Events (PVE), the sponsorship activation experts, provide innovative fanzone experiences at some of the biggest events in sport.  From the Open Golf and Ryder Cup, through Wimbledon, the Solheim Cup and the Olympics, PVE are the go to guys for engaging sport fans.  Recently however, a different type of activation has been taking PVE into new arenas and golf has been the unexpected vehicle…

Nick Clemens, Founder of Provision Events continues, “Golf has a long tradition of brands sponsoring the game because they want to engage with fans.  What is a relatively new occurrence and one we’re seeing more of is these same brands wanting to use golf, away from its traditional setting, as a means to attract and engage potential customers in a fun and interactive way.”

For instance, leading technology brand Dell employed PVE to bring their data analytics to life at the recent VM World exhibition in Las Vegas.  By installing a golf simulator on the stand, PVE gave Dell means to attract people onto the stand and chat to them about how Dell technology could enhance their business.

“We worked with Dell at the VM World exhibition in Las Vegas to provide an interactive experience for visitors to the show,” explains Clemens. “Installing a golf simulator on to the Dell stand was a perfect way to drive footfall and highlight Callaway’s use of Dell data analytics at the same time.  In what was quite an information heavy environment, the fun aspect of the simulator really appealed to attendees and the stand was packed all day.  It also gave the guys from Dell chance to talk about their technology to an audience that was already engaging with the brand.”

The activation at VM world was medium scale and relied on participants’ ability and enthusiasm to hit a golf ball. But the game in its most simple form can also pull in big crowds in a non-sporting environment, as PVE’s recent installation at Vision Expo demonstrated.  “We’ve just finished running a small but incredibly effective activation for Luxottica, the world’s biggest eyewear group,” said Clemens. “We were asked to design an interactive area for Oakley to drive attendee footfall and promote trials of their new Oakley Prizm glasses.  We put together a short putting hole and challenged people to make as many putts as possible in 30 seconds wearing the Prizm glasses, with the winner getting to go to an Oakley sponsored event.  Anyone can play Mini golf so the challenge was really well received by golfers and non-golfers alike. There were queues all day with every participant interacting with the Oakley brand and using the new product. For a simple design and layout the impact was huge.”

Nick Louther from Oakley was delighted with the impact of the activation at Vision Expo and sees the potential for using sporting activations in other non-sporting environments, “I’ve worked with Provision Events at both Vision Expo East & West and couldn’t be happier with our partnership. The staff are very knowledgeable and engaging which helps create a welcoming vibe at our booth and breaks down any barriers to entry. Although we’ve only leveraged golf activations, I know the PVE team is hard at work conceptualizing experience for other user groups.”

“The reaction to our activations at both of these events has been fantastic,” concludes Clemens. “Not only has the client been delighted that we’ve helped them meet their business goals, but we’ve had a number of enquiries from other brands who want to use both golf and other sporting activities to drive engagement with their customers.  Golf often gets a bad rap for being exclusive and the preserve of the few, but our experiences really suggest that there is a huge audience who just enjoy the act of getting club on ball. That might be putting down a short mini golf hole, hitting in a simulator or any number of other ways that we haven’t yet designed! Through the success we’ve had at driving footfall and engaging customers with golf, we’re now being given opportunities to bring our wider sporting expertise into some exciting projects and I can’t wait to show off our ideas for how sport can be a powerful tool for brands who want to communicate their message in a fun and interactive way.”