Pelican Golf Club
Curating a Branded Event Experience for Elite Athletes
Curating a Branded Event Experience for Elite Athletes
When our long-term client, Pelican Golf Club, asked us to help them with event branding for their inaugural LPGA tournament, The Pelican Women’s Championship, we couldn’t wait to get started.
Pelican needed help to ensure their brand integrity remained intact while introducing a global audience to their private-facing club. Outside of that delicate task, they needed us to create a new event brand and blow it out across multiple event marketing materials, including showcasing the tournament on social platforms for the first time.
The Pelican Women’s Championship brings the greatest female professional golfers to Pelican Golf Club in Bellair, Florida. This was our chance to create a brand experience that matched The Pelican’s sophistication and detail.
Brand Idea creation
Tournament credentials
Event communication
Entrance banners
Large scale signage
Sub-brand creation
Program Design
Custom sound ideation
External event communication
Digital ad creative
Custom player merchandise
Are you struggling to connect your brand with what you do?
Luckily, that's what we do, and we love doing it.
Contact
The Challenge
Our audience challenge was unique. We needed to maintain the brand voice to current Pelican members and Pelican staff, whom we communicate to regularly, and define how we would communicate to the new tournament patron and fan. Apart from this dual messaging need, we were also tasked with creating brand elements for everything: Tournament credentials, entrance banners, large scale signage, programs, custom sound ideation, external event communication, digital ads, and even custom player merchandise.
The Solution
Before we could start on any visual work, we knew the first step was crafting a brand idea that was going to resonate with our audiences: golf fans, players, and the current Pelican members and staff. Through industry research and our unique creative approach, the brand idea, “A New Season for Women’s Golf” was born. This was more than a tagline; it was something to rally around – a belief that the Pelican Women’s Championship would be an experience unlike any other on the LPGA tour.
The Guest Experience
With our idea in tow, we quickly began building out the tournament's visual brand. Utilizing Pelican’s existing logo assets, we created an event logo that fit perfectly into their current brand. While introducing a Pink pelican head broke the brand standards of the club’s ‘Gold only’ policy for the pelican head, this intentional change in color sent the message to those familiar with the Pelican brand that this tournament held some weight.
Like any event, our branding needed to complement event logistics and operations, especially because we were dealing with technical items such as the tournament’s credentials. We worked collaboratively with the tournament’s operations team to ensure the 20+ credentials had enough variety for essential purposes while remaining in line with the overall Pelican branding. The result — gorgeous and functional event credentials that patrons were sure to keep as a token of their experience.
A New Season for Women’s Golf meant that players of the LPGA tour felt represented and cared for. Each athlete received a personalized gift package that included modern custom sweatsuits that brought our brand experience beyond the course.
The Member Experience
To introduce the Pelican Women’s Championship event to existing Pelican members, we created a ticket package that allowed members exclusive access to areas throughout the club as well as special access on the course.
This ticket package needed a brand that represented the prestige value of the ticket. After some creative thinking, ‘The Champions Club’ was born. A name that spoke to the prestige and status of Pelican members and a visual logo that highlighted the prominent gold brand color.
To continue the member experience, we created tournament programs with exclusive event logistics and key LPGA player information. We used the voice of The Pelican in all member communication surrounding the tournament and created personalized communication booklets for members only that provided details on their unique experience.
We utilized our in-house studio and created custom photography sessions on the grounds of The Pelican. The images mobilized social media content, and the art direction and execution were unlike anything the golf industry had seen. With a highly editorial focus, the images were bold, bright, and told a story that tied back to A New Season for Women’s Golf.
As The Pelican Women’s Championship approached, the town of Belleair, Florida buzzed with travelers from all over who were preparing for the event ahead. Our team created banners that dressed the streets surrounding The Pelican to announce the event and to greet guests and players.
Throughout the project, it was our priority to ensure that the brand experience was all encompassing. We found a way to bring the brand beyond the course to resonate with event guests, tournament players, and Pelican members and staff. Every touchpoint was designed with intention and crafted with expertise – creating brand longevity for years to come.
Let's Build Your Brand Together
We help businesses find the clarity to succeed and the employee buy-in to scale. Together, we build resilient brands that have long-lasting impact.
Contact Our Team