Not everyone who picks up a golf club can make it to the Masters, as Bill Murray’s character famously fantasizes about in Caddyshack. For its debut brand campaign, though, indoor golf and entertainment company Five Iron wants everyone to know that even if they’re no Rory McIlroy, they can still have a good time on the green.
The campaign, called “It’s All Good Form,” includes a two-minute spot that shows a variety of golfer personas, from a man looking to take some frustration out after work to a group of friends enjoying happy hour to a couple on a first date, all at Five Iron.
“Teeing it up at Five Iron isn’t about the right or wrong way,” comedian and golf personality Hannah Rae Aslesen says in the spot. “Here, you play as you see fit.”
Golf brands have traditionally struggled with golf’s somewhat elitist image, and in recent years, have made some efforts to broaden the sport’s appeal. For Five Iron, that perception became apparent in its market research leading up to the campaign, according to CMO Jed Lewis, and was one that the brand wanted to challenge.
“We found a lot of these stigmas and barriers and hurdles for folks to participate or come to a Five Iron, and a lot of them had to do with accessibility of just being like, ‘I’m not that good,’ or, ‘I don’t know of anyone I could go with,’ or, ‘I’m gonna embarrass myself,’” he told Marketing Brew. “It’s something we’ve always done, providing accessibility and lots of access points for a lot of different types of people, not just hardcore golfers, but I don’t think we’ve ever explicitly shown it until this moment.”
In addition to addressing some of the general hangups people might have about hitting the links, Five Iron is aiming to boost its own brand awareness among everyone from avid golfers to those who might have better luck as groundskeepers.
Is it casual now?
Known largely for its golf simulators, Five Iron’s core demographic remains avid golfers, but in order to grow the brand, Lewis said he wanted to target the “more social customer” who might not consider themselves to be a serious player.
To get that casual group through the doors, “you’ve got to really be able to express accessibility,” he said.
The humor in the campaign—which includes a two-minute video, 30- and 15-second CTV spots, out-of-home ads, and a paid social component—is conveyed by Aslesen, a member of the golf comedy content group St. André Golf, which Five Iron worked with last year for a social campaign promoting the opening of its Atlanta venue. When Lewis and his team were brainstorming for the brand campaign and decided on “kind of a deadpan” tone, Aslesen immediately came to mind, he said.
Master stroke
Despite Aslesen’s good-natured ribs at golfers, Lewis isn’t out to alienate any die-hard players.
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“I always worry about walking the tightrope between the avid golfer and the casual golfer,” Lewis said. “In the house of Five Iron in one day, you’re gonna have people in at 6am with their earbuds in, working away on their swing before they go into work, you’re gonna have people taking lessons, you’re gonna have happy-hour folks, you’re gonna have people late at night having a couple pictures of beer and just having fun. We cover the gamut, but you don’t want to be a master of none.”
Lewis isn’t too concerned that more experienced golfers might take the jokes the wrong way, though. In addition to surveying potential customers, Five Iron conducted research among its existing audience, which showed they already think of the brand as approachable. “It gave us…permission to be fun,” he said.
Five Iron is running OOH ads, largely digital, in four major markets where the brand has locations: New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Minneapolis. The 15-second videos will run across Meta platforms, with stills from the campaign appearing in print in Golf Digest and on the brand’s owned channels, like its social accounts and blog. Lewis said he’ll be looking at site traffic, especially from new users, and store traffic, as well as conducting brand-lift studies for the OOH element to see if the campaign is performing as planned. If so, Five Iron might expand the push to other markets, or look toward a second brand campaign, he said.
Early feedback from the Five Iron community has seemed positive, Lewis said, adding that the increased spotlight on golf thanks to an especially exciting Masters is likely helping.
“The timing is no coincidence,” he said. “We just feel like the Masters is the time when golf has its stock highest in the cultural zeitgeist. Even if you’re a casual fan, this is [when] golf is probably on your radar—and we certainly lucked out this year with the way the Masters panned out.”