To leverage the start of the 2022 DP World Tour (the new name for the European Tour) which teed off at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship on 20 January, several brand partners launched notable new golf activations such as Hero Motor Corp’s ‘Hero Challenge: One Yard Fairway’ and HSBC’s ‘Player Interviews’ & ‘Future Falcons’ programme.
Player ambassadors Rory McIlroy, Tyrrell Hatton and Collin Morikawa took on ‘The One Yard Fairway’ ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship – the first Rolex Series event of 2022 DP World Tour season – tasked to hit down one-yard wide fairway on the drag strip at Yas Marina Circuit (Abu Dhabi’s Formula 1 circuit).
The brand backed stunt saw defending champion (Hatton) joined four-time Major Champion (McIlroy) and current Tour Number One (Morikawa) aim for the slimmest of targets to generate footage for a digital/social campaign.
As with previous iterations of the Hero Challenge, the activation again features a group of elite Tour players tackling a golf challenge for a short-form social and digital video which was supported by a more in-depth ‘behind-the-scenes’ broadcast show and a PR push.
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The name change from the familiar European Tour to the DP World Tour comes at the start of the 2022 season – the Tour’s 50th anniversary – which features a minimum of 47 tournaments in 27 different countries (including new tournaments in the UAE, Japan, South Africa, and Belgium).
As well as backing fielding hockey and cricket, Hero Motocorp – the world’s largest motorcycle and scooter manufacturer – has marketed around golf for more than a decade. Its sponsorships range from an ambassador deal with Tiger Woods to sponsoring the Indian Open Golf since 2005 and has official tie-ups with the Asian Tour and the US PGA as well as with the European Tour.
The ‘One Yard Challenge’ reminds us of some of the more notable recent golf-related stunt initiatives such as 2021’s European Tour and Callaway Golf challenge to Marcus Armitage to break the Guinness World Records title for the ‘Farthest Golf Shot Into A Moving Car’.
The ambient sponsor stunt from Hero follows in the footsteps of the brand’s golf-linked live shows which ran from 2016 and 2020, after which Hero switched its activation focus to a series of ‘Hero Challenges’ from locations across the Tour schedule.
In 2021, Ian Poulter and Tyrrell Hatton took part in a challenge at to make a hole-in-one with just 50 balls each in Scotland, plus the Guinness World Records for the ‘Fastest Hole of Golf By A Team Of Four’ was broken at Valderrama, as well as a further Hero Challenge taking place at TopGolf Dubai.
The Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship was first staged in 2006 and co-title partner HSBC came on board in 2011.
HSBC, the title sponsor of the Tour opening Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, also rolled out content-led activation ahead of the tournament in the form of long-form films of in-depth brand interviews with player ambassadors Rory McIlroy and Collin Morikawa.
The online videos, created in partnership with agency Hill+Knowlton Strategies, see four-time Major winner Mcllroy reflect on a challenging year, recovering from a poor Ryder Cup, outlining how fatherhood has changed his outlook and discussing his golf goals for the year ahead and current Open Champion Morikawa speak about the secrets to his meteoric rise in the game as well as his future.
Another aspect of HSBC’s activation programme, which came as the financial giant celebrated 75 years of business in the Middle East, include a commitment to creating new opportunities at the grassroots level of golf through the ‘HSBC Future Falcons’ programme in tandem with the Abu Dhabi Sports Council to support the growth of golf in the UAE which has introduced 80000 children to golf.
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