To promote the tee-off of its title sponsorship tournament, the World Golf Championships HSBC Champions, HSBC persuaded some of the world’s best golfers to reveal their superhero personas and even dress like them at a ‘Superhero’ themed launch event.
As one of the strongest golfing fields of the year assembled on Shanghai for ‘Asia’s Major’ – which sees 15 of the world’s top ranked players take to the Sheshan International Golf Club course– HSBC hosted an unusual, gravity-defying stunt suspending four star golfers in mid-air.
Adopting a superhero motif, cape-wearing stars Dustin Johnson, Henrik Stenson, Hideki Matsuyama and Haotong Li all dropped into the Peninsula Hotel on the river Bund in an all-action aerial stunt devised and directed by Beijing-born artist Li Wei.
The launch event stunt was promoted through a multi-pronged activation approach that spanned a PR strand, plus content running across the banking brands digital and social platforms,
You won't believe what these golfing superstars have been up to at #HSBCChampions… pic.twitter.com/XvBZDIOSz9
— HSBC Sport (@HSBC_Sport) October 24, 2017
with further ‘Which Superhero Would You Be’ player social spot support on the European Tour’s own channels,
Which superhero would Jon Rahm be?
: @HSBC_Sport pic.twitter.com/IIkbt6GMhR
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) October 25, 2017
(which also host the rights-holder’s own tournament promotional pieces too).
The world's best golfers are in China this week #HSBCChampions pic.twitter.com/CsKvgiT9Wj
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) October 25, 2017
The #HSBCChampions Tuesday photo shoot rarely disappoints pic.twitter.com/ETD8uLZe0e
— The European Tour (@EuropeanTour) October 24, 2017
“Golf has entered a new era of opportunity where the game is embracing innovation in technology and format and where anything is possible. You only need to look at the Majors where eight of the last nine champions have been first-time Major winners – as our long-running campaign says, it’s Anyone’s Game,” said an HSBC launch statement.
“We hope that with this kind of promotion where golf is encouraged to go beyond the norm, we will do our part to help open the game up to new audiences. As demonstrated at our launch event today, there is a new type of golf, a more exciting golf– golf without limits.”
Comment:
He superheroes idea is an ongoing theme for HSBC’s activation of the tournament and follows in the footsteps of its 2016 ‘Return Of The Superheroes’ activation (see case study).
Links:
HSBC Golf Website:
https://www.youtube.com/user/HSBC
https://plus.google.com/u/0/101568139402163729978
https://twitter.com/HSBC_Sport
https://www.linkedin.com/company/hsbc
World Golf Championships – HSBC Champions:
http://www.worldgolfchampionships.com/hsbc-champions.html
