S&S repositions golf

Because as client, HSBC, notes – why should football have all the fans?

“Golf is changing – with a new wave of players, fans and locations changing the shape of the game. Our ambition is to help open up the sport,” HSBC briefed Saatchi & Saatchi. So S&S took up the challenge to support the bank’s international golf sponsorship portfolio by showing that golf is worthy of an all in, every man fan following like football has. The global campaign called Anyone’s Game is the result.

Kate Stanners, chief creative officer, Saatchi & Saatchi London Group, commented, “We’ve taken golf out of the club house into the real world, making it feel as popular, accessible and fun as more mainstream sports like football – and showing that golf really can be Anyone’s Game.”

The 60 second TVC is an high energy, high enthusiasm music video with quirky bits, produced in Chile and Shanghai with director, Scott Lyon, and photographer, Dean Rogers. It went to air on October 30 across Pan-Asian countries, prior to the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai.

The YouTube film, digital, print and outdoor components will launch globally ahead of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship in January. The campaign will support the HSBC golf portfolio, promoted in social channels via @HSBC_Golf and at HSBC’s interactive villages at flagship events.

Andrea Newman, global head of advertising and marketing at HSBC noted, “HSBC’s golf portfolio covers a wide range of activity from Patron of the Open – the sport’s oldest tournament and trophy – through to our own flagship golf tournaments in Asia, the UAE and Brazil. We are also investing in grass roots programmes in the UK and China to help unearth future global superstars of the game. Anyone’s Game is a campaign that recognises the changing shape and influence of the game of Golf around the world.