2013 Winners & Shortlists

Results and Effectiveness

Measuring the results against the initial KPIs (increase attendance by 25% to break the 40 000 attendees threshold): Results: The 2012 championship managed to attract 82,000 visitors, which is a 148% increase over 2011. Facebook “likes” increased by 4748% with 18990 likes The number of people who had traveled from other Emirates has more than doubled vs 2012 When asked what word they would associate with this tournament 42% of people interviewed chose the word “Exciting” Total free media coverage reached 13, 860 000 AED or 3.7 Million USD

Creative Execution

In previous years all communications focused on players whether they came from the organizers (Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority) or the main sponsor HSBC. For the first time ever both HSBC and ADTA joined efforts to have one unifying idea, HSBC would focus on the family experience and ADTA on the huge sports show: Introducing The Giants of Golf. The objective was to create buzz around the event, and generate awareness, Intrigue, and excitement. That could be achieved through using different touch points and adding the giants theme to it: Tapping into family environments was a challenge without being intrusive and therefore we had invitations in the form of Giant Golf Balls around family communities in Dubai where villas are of 3+ bedrooms to ensure we are targeting families, zorb ball activations, and much more ambient ideas to make the event a giant day out. (Check out the video for more)

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf championships is one of the major tournaments on the PGA tour. Launched in 2006 it has continuously featured the best players in the world such as Rory McIlroy, Louis Oosthuizen and Paul Kaysey. Unfortunately despite the investments, the celebrities and marketing efforts attendance was plateauing at around 30 000. The key problem was that the tournament was only appealing to Golf aficionados and not to the greater public. It was perceived as elitist and exclusive and let’s admit: not as exciting as football, Formula1 or even tennis. We clearly understood from consumers but also from competitive analysis that we had to make the sport itself more exciting to the layman and turn the tournament into a family destination. Cracking the 30, 000 visitor’s threshold could only be reached by appealing to a broader mass of people not necessarily very familiar with the game of golf.