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From the thousands of perfectly manicured courses on which the game takes place to the strict

etiquette that binds its players, golf is without doubt both a prestigious and exclusive sport. When it comes to the upper echelons of professional golf, the brands that seek to align themselves with the sport - names such as Rolex, Mercedes-Benz and HSBC - are testament to the premium nature of the game and its fans.

Indeed, the typically high socio-economic status of golf’s followers make the sport an attractive proposition to a variety of high-end consumer and corporate businesses; however, despite the wealth of consumers and the consumers’ wealth on show at any given event, the problems of how to turn sponsorship dollars into return on investment remains.

In any sport, the effective utilisation of all of a sponsor’s activation rights on all levels - be they promotions, branding, fan engagement or otherwise - is an important aspect in making sure that a sponsorship delivers. However, for a number of reasons, in golf a particular emphasis is placed on a brand’s hospitality offering.

The tented community of the hospitality village has become a ubiquitous sight at golf’s major events. Though the tents themselves simply enable brands to safeguard their VIP clients from the elements during what is often an all-day or all-weekend affair, according to Adrian Dinsdale, head of strategic consulting at sports marketing agency Essentially Group, they are just one part of an overall hospitality experience that acts as “the cherry on the top of the cake from the point of view of giving people a real flavour for what the brand is all about.”

And, given the nature of the brands

involved in the sport, companies should, and do, go to great lengths in order to ensure that their hospitality programme is of such quality that the aftertaste left in guests’ mouths is anything but bitter.

“What we try to do is make sure that from the moment the guests are picked up from the airport through to the moment that they’re dropped back at the airport, that they’re getting a very seamless experience in terms of the premium nature of it in order to reinforce the premium nature that the brand has,” explains Dinsdale. “We can’t afford to do things half-heartedly and so

that chauffeur-driven experience needs to be exemplary. That kind of consistency and that level of approach needs to be applied to everything we do and maintained throughout the hospitality experience.”

It is an approach that is easier said than done but for the past three years Dinsdale and his employer have been putting the theory into practice as the agency behind all aspects of Pilsner Urquell’s sponsorship of the Open Championship, the oldest of the four Major Championships in professional golf and arguably the most prestigious.

“I think the approach we take with hospitality is the same approach that we took with the brand,” says Petr Dvorak, the Czech brewer’s global brand director. “If we want to do something then we want to do it in a very profound way in order to create memorable experiences. If we invite

guests, the underlying message that we want to leave with them about us and about the brand has to be one that is both strong and memorable.”

Dinsdale adds: “It’s about trying to stay one step ahead in terms of thinking about what people’s expectations are for their day. We make sure that we over-deliver wherever we can so that they’re coming back and saying, ‘Pilsner Urquell has given me this really amazing experience, it’s definitely a premium brand and it’s one that I want to talk to other people about.’ We’re always looking to see what we can do in terms of giving people a bit of added extra as opposed to a general hospitality facility and this year was no different.”

Indeed, in keeping with the brand’s promise of creating something both premium and memorable, highlights of this year’s hospitality programme at the 2011 Open Championship included a two-night stay at London’s Savoy hotel, a course guide given by former Open champion Tony Jacklin, and a cooked breakfast and three-course dinner aboard the Pilsner Urquell Express, a luxury and wholly rebranded train, which carried guests to and from the course at Royal St George’s Golf Club in Kent. There, given the quality of hospitality afforded to the SABMiller brand’s 150 guests, even several days of heavy rain could not dampen the spirits of the assorted internal staff, competition winners, key trade and business partners and journalists.

The lavish accommodation and transport, Dinsdale explains, is in part owing to the invariably remote locations of the courses that the Open and other similarly high-profile golf events are played on. “If you imagine that most of these courses are in remote locations, often

Hospitality at golf’s biggest tournaments is renowned for being some of the best in sport. Pilsner Urquell’s offering at this year’s Open Championship, where it is the official beer, provided a case in point.

A ToAsT AT Tee Time

By Tom Love

“i think the approach we take with hospitality is the same

approach that we took with the brand.”

sPeCiAL RePoRT | GOLF

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next to villages, then you don’t have a 500-room, five-star hotel where you can simply book rooms. And, even if you do, then those rooms are booked years in advance. That means that we have to be quite creative in our thinking in terms of where we accommodate our guests so that we know that we’re definitely going to give them that top-notch kind of experience.”

The difficulties of sourcing accommodation and transport might be determined by the location of the course itself, but regardless of the surrounding facilities, equally important, according to Dinsdale, is to make sure that guests are not tied to a hospitality facility. “Over the years we’ve learnt to tailor the timetable as such so that everybody is getting the most out of the golf and they’re getting the longest possible day that they can. Ultimately, the entire experience is about getting out there, walking the course and seeing the golf.”

Added to that checklist of things to get right is a proper evaluation of the programme. “I think a lot of businesses spend years just trundling out the same hospitality programmes and don’t actually analyse whether the experience is necessarily something that their guests enjoyed and would do again,” says Dinsdale. “We’re always trying to evaluate the experience that people had and trying to make it better and I think it’s one of those things where there is always room for improvement. You can always come back and say, ‘Well, we did it this way this year but we’ve got some excellent feedback from people that says that next year we should do it this way.’”

To that extent, Dvorak explains that having completed a “post-event evaluation where we look at what we did right and what we need to better” and finding “nothing to complain about”, both parties are already hard at work on next year’s programme at Royal Lytham & St Annes Golf Club in Lancashire.

And, though Dvorak admits to not being a golf fan, he explains that “based on the incredible experiences I’ve had with Pilsner Urquell so far, I’m still planning to become one.”

Pilsner Urquell treated guests at July’s Open Championship to Tony Jacklin’s (middle left) course guide, transport on the branded Pilsner Urquell Express train (bottom left), and liquid refreshment aplenty.

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