One of the Brandon Agency’s clients, Myrtle Beach Golf Holiday, recently incorporated a national media buy with ESPN Radio and espnradio.com that included a celebrity endorsement by the hosts of Mike and Mike in the Morning, Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg.
“The Boys” touted Myrtle Beach for the lush greens, outstanding weather and pristine beaches. The online, and on-air campaign, ran from January 17, 2011 to April 8th, 2011. Golf Holiday also incorporated a contest to spice up the media buy which entailed a winner and guest participating in the 17th Annual Hootie and the Blowfish Monday after the Masters coupled with the chance to meet Greeny and Golic.
In this case, we should shout SUCCESS, as the contest entries totaled 34,468, with 57,735 views to the contest page. The campaign concluded on April 11 with Mike and Mike hosted their show live from Barefoot Resort’s Dye Club here in Myrtle Beach.
All in all, Greeny and Golic did an amazing job and brought awareness and credibility to Myrtle Beach as a golf destination.
It also worked out that the celebs selected had relevance to the marketing plan. Sports talk show coupled with golf. Makes sense, right? It also helps that Golic has some skills on the green. We also reviewed key markets that the show airs, and copy-split our message to ensure that we were hitting direct flight markets strongly. It all worked out.
There are downsides to celebrity endoresement, however. Celebrities are human. They make mistakes. They cheat on their wives and ALLEGEDLY get chased and hit with a golf club by the betrayed spouse. They operate dog fighting rings. These mistakes can take your companys credibility from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the dogpile. So be careful whom you select.
Luckily, the game of golf in Myrtle Beach booms because of two stand up guys that host a small little morning sports talk show Monday through Friday from 6 am-10 am on ESPN Radio!