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SBD/Issue 227/Sponsorships, Advertising & Marketing
PGA Tour Fills Vacated Cruise Category With Norwegian
Published August 20, 2007
The PGA Tour has signed a three-year deal with Norwegian to serve as official cruise line of the PGA Tour and Champions Tour. Terms were not available, but similar deals typically sell in the low-to-mid seven figure range. The category had sat vacant since ’00, when Royal Caribbean failed to extend its deal after five years.
SWING TEMPO: Norwegian will immediately support the relationship with TV, print and online ads, as well as direct mail. Existing TV ads will be modified to include a verbal or graphic mention of the official status. Those spots will run during coverage on CBS and NBC of all four playoff events. Newspaper ads will run in USA Today, and ads currently running in publications like Travel & Leisure Golf, Golf World and Golf Digest will be updated to mention the official status. Norwegian also receives ad space at PGATour.com and will send a direct mailer to the PGA Tour database and travel agencies. Look for the cruise line to activate locally at tournaments. “The on-site activation will be a key component of this deal,” said Norwegian Senior VP/Marketing & Sales Scott Rogers.
BUILDING IT OUT: The older, wealthy target demo was part of the attraction to a golf deal. “We also gravitated to the PGA Tour because they could add validity to, and create faster awareness of, our packages in Hawaii and Bermuda,” said Rogers. There are no immediate plans to create Tour-branded vacations in cohort with the PGA Tour Experiences, which markets golf packages. Rogers said that the company may look to support the deal in the future with individual player endorsements.
MAKINGS OF A DEAL: The PGA Tour approached Norwegian to gauge its interest in a sponsorship after a Tour exec read an article about the company’s Golf Hawaii program. GSD&M serves as the ad agency for both Norwegian and the PGA Tour and helped bring the two parties to the table. Norwegian has no other sports deals and no sports marketing agency.
