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Keeping a promise
Outreach campaign poised to communicate PDI’s higher standards.
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Recognition of members for their attainment and maintenance of GCSAA Class A status is one of the goals of the association’s outreach efforts. Here, GCSAA Class A Superintendent Fred Klauk is highlighted during The Golf Channel’s broadcast of this spring’s Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. Photo by Scott Hollister |
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of GCM articles that will
examine GCSAA activities on behalf of its members. Future topics will include the association’s governmental
relations and career service efforts.
In his April GCM column, GCSAA President Ricky D. Heine, CGCS, told members that the association “is currently in the midst of its largest-ever investment to communicate with employers and influential golfers on its members’ behalf.”
He mentioned that the investment includes GCSAA-sponsored commercials and superintendent interviews on The Golf Channel, as well as articles in newspapers and magazines. GCSAA has dedicated “significant time, effort and resources” to position its members, he said, and “We … want the golfer to know that it’s the GCSAA member who makes the experience enjoyable.”
The resources Heine mentioned — the financial portion of which totals around $1.1 million this year — are going into an employer- and influential golfer-directed outreach campaign that “reinforces what our target audience has told us through surveys.”
Heine noted in his column that employers tell GCSAA that “superintendents are a key to the economic vitality of their facilities, that our members are team players who must have a facility-wide focus and that GCSAA is a leading golf organization on which employers rely…”
He also highlighted what surveyed avid golfers have told the association — that superintendents “are key to their enjoyment of the game, that they view superintendents as professionals and that they have a good or excellent opinion of GCSAA.”
Heine recently told GCM that the association has a responsibility to spell out to members why the planned outreach investment is being made and the nature of the initiative’s goals.
“The current positioning and media campaign for our GCSAA members is the culmination of the vision of our past leadership for member standards,” Heine said. “The Professional Development Initiative is about education and commitment. The decision to require standards for GCSAA Class A members is now going to be shared with the golf world, and respect and value for the profession will grow appropriately.
“The board of directors believes that it’s the perfect time to step up our work to promote our membership,” he noted. “The golf course superintendent who fulfills the continuing education requirements of PDI should be recognized for the effort.”
A promise made
Employers and influential golfers may now recognize the importance of the superintendent, but that hasn’t always been the case.
According to GCSAA CEO Steve Mona, CAE, association members at the 1994 chapter delegates meeting — his first — definitely did not believe they were viewed as key to the enjoyment of the game of golf. In fact, Mona told GCM, delegates back then in no uncertain terms told GCSAA’s leadership that although superintendents are professionals, they were being undercompensated, underappreciated and lacked career advancement opportunities. And they wanted to know what their association was going to do about it.
That challenge, Mona said, resulted “in a simple proposition: If golf course management is to be a true profession, it needs a recognized body of knowledge, a requirement that allows superintendents to call themselves part of a profession — GCSAA Class A status — and ongoing requirements that allow them to keep that status.” That all boiled down to a then-controversial concept: member standards.
In 1997, a member task group defined criteria to be included in a member standards program, which became known as the Professional Development Initiative. To maintain a GCSAA Class A membership under PDI, a superintendent must possess a combination of continuing education, job experience and service to the profession and community, and must have a pesticide license or complete a GCSAA-developed IPM exam.
Mona described the member vote to approve PDI as a promise made to GCSAA members by the leadership.
“We made the promise of PDI to our members very explicitly,” he said, “and it was this: If you vote onto yourselves a higher standard to reach and attain Class A membership, then we as an association will create a brand — an awareness in the marketplace — as to what this brand means and why a golf facility should ‘buy’ this brand. The members clearly did not want us to go through the PDI exercise, raise the level and then not tell anyone about it.”
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A mix of one-page and two-page spread advertising in employer-focused publications is part of GCSAA’s outreach efforts. Pictured is the two-page spread. |
All Class A members were grandfathered into PDI implementation and were placed on a three-, four- or five-year renewal cycle. This month marks the renewal deadline for those on the four-year cycle, with the final group’s deadline set for July 2008.
The marketplace to which the branding effort is targeted includes “the groups that matter most,” Mona said, “and we define them as employers and influential, avid golfers.” That effort, he noted, ratcheted up earlier this year after the first grandfathered Class A group renewed its status under PDI.
If the association is successful in creating brand equity and awareness — in effect, value — around the designation “GCSAA Class A member,” Mona believes employers will seek out that value and will be willing to pay for it. Marketplace value is recognized, he noted, by various measures: market share, reputation, stock value, etc. For golf course superintendents, value is manifested in compensation, title/duties, respect, awareness, benefits, inclusion, work environment and understanding of the superintendent’s importance to the golf facility.
First steps
Although it was clear from the beginning that the branding initiative for Class A members would start when they began renewing their status under PDI, Mona emphasized that the association didn’t wait to begin making employers and influential golfers more aware of GCSAA and its members.
The year 1994 saw a fundamental change in GCSAA as it altered its business approach to focus significant attention on enhancing the image of the superintendent. During the years immediately following, resources — including a substantial amount of money — were directed toward outreach to employers and avid golfers, according to Jeff Bollig, GCSAA’s communications director.
That outreach, Bollig noted, included the TV show “Par for the Course,” an expanded media/public relations staff, work with a public relations agency and new alliances with other golf organizations and the media. The effort increased communication to employers and influential golfers about the superintendent’s role and emphasized relationship building with allied associations, all while moving the focus of GCSAA outreach efforts from the profession to the professional — the GCSAA member superintendent.
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GCSAA’s outeach campaign makes heavy use of televised media, much of it involving The Golf Channel. Here, a Golf Channel crew films Paul Jett, CGCS. Photo by Thomas Brown. |
That mid-1990s campaign, as is the case with the current version, mixed paid advertising, editorial content (or “free” media) and relationships to create awareness and understanding of the superintendent’s role and GCSAA itself, Bollig said.
The results of that effort were measured by the PR firm, which analyzed the view of superintendents and GCSAA in the marketplace in the late 1990s. “Those findings,” Bollig said, “told us that superintendents were in better positions, both professionally and socially, than ever, and that the main driver behind superintendents’ new-found influence was golfer attitudes.”
There were two clear messages from those findings — that the superintendent is viewed as the key to both the economic vitality of the golf facility and the golfer’s enjoyment of the game and that GCSAA is one of golf’s leading organizations. Those messages form the basis, Bollig said, of the current campaign. He noted that successful campaigns can have tangible benefits (or value) to organizations and individuals. Examples are the Dairy Council’s “Got Milk?” campaign, Nike’s “Just Do It,” and the PGA Tour’s “These Guys are Good” promotion.
‘Golf’s Unseen Heroes’
The tagline for the new campaign is “Golf’s Unseen Heroes.” As Bollig explained, this doesn’t mean GCSAA members should be unseen, but rather refers to the member’s state during the golfer’s experience — golfer versus golf course. However, there is something during the experience that makes it enjoyable. The campaign, he said, seeks to make the golfer aware that it’s the GCSAA member who is the source of that enjoyment.
The messaging strategy includes a mix of elements, including:
Television: The Golf Channel
• 600 30-second commercial spots; 10 live GCSAA member interviews from tournament locations; two three- to five-minute segments from the Golf Industry Show
• Course setup features during 15 LPGA events, including a weekly feature on the “Sprint Pre-Game Show” discussing course conditioning and setup that might affect strategy, and an interview with the superintendent when relevant
• Special programming — the “Remaking of Sawgrass,” a 30-minute feature on the new TPC Sawgrass that aired during the Players Championship and will air again, and a “What’s in the Bag?” episode featuring golf’s relationship to the environment to air later this year
• Various graphic and audio references to GCSAA and its members through The Golf Channel’s programming. This includes logos, name references GCSAA identification, etc.
The Internet
• A Thursday presence in a weekly e-push to 600,000 Golf Channel newsletter subscribers; Thursday and Friday home page presence with rotating messages on The Golf Channel home page and the PGA Tour events page
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A full-page advertisement that will be placed in employer-focused |
Magazines
• A mix of one-page and two-page spread advertising (see illustrations) in employer-focused publications, including Golf Business, Golf Inc., Club & Resort Business, Boardroom, Club Management magazine and potentially, Parks and Recreation
LPGA agronomist position
• The association will provide the LPGA Tour with a GCSAA agronomist to consult on course set-up for LPGA events, for which GCSAA and its members will receive media exposure through commercials, features, on-course signage, pro-am spots, LPGA.com and news release exposure, access to LPGA players for public service advertisements and other future items
State/regional publications/chapter outreach
• A pilot program to develop a cooperative arrangement with GCSAA chapters to advertise in state and regional publications or engage in an outreach program to support GCSAA and chapter goals
Employer events
• A presence at employer/owner (NGCOA, CMAA, etc.) events by exhibiting, giving presentations or hosting special meetings
Editorial placement
• Articles regularly placed in various publications, emphasizing employer-focused publications, as well as content for Internet golf-related sites and XM Radio interviews
Media relations/services
• News releases, tournament fact sheets, interviews, information packets, news conferences, on-site media assistance, chapter media planning/execution
Public relations
• Special Olympics sponsorship, Golf 20/20 participation, awards programs, participation in the Play Golf America campaign, PGA Tour relationship, GCSAA/Golf Digest Environmental Leaders in Golf program, etc.
Brand management
• Managing how the GCSAA and Class A member brand is used, including specific style guides, color palette, messaging and integration
Member/chapter assistance
• Articles for reprint, news release templates, etc.
Measuring success
So, how does GCSAA determine the success of the outreach campaign? It’s evaluated in the same manner as other GCSAA programs, Bollig said. Goals are quantified through a set of strategic indicators that measure the performance of programs and services. Such indicators include average salary of members, number of education seminar seats sold, exhibition space at the Golf Industry Show, attitudes and perceptions of key audiences (employers/influential golfers), etc. If a particular indicator is reached, the efforts that support them are deemed to be successful.
GCSAA’s outreach efforts affect virtually every aspect of the association. Specific indicators referring to salary growth and improvements in the attitudes and perceptions of employers/avid golfers indicate the strategy is working (see the sidebars “Making progress” and “Average salaries consistently improve.”)
With the advent of member standards, new measures have been created that will allow the association to determine the effectiveness of the current positioning campaign, Bollig noted. Growth in Class A membership, salary levels, golfer/employer attitudes and perceptions will allow measurement of how the strategies are working. However, the impact won’t be seen overnight. It will take time and resources to educate the marketplace on the value of Class A and GCSAA membership. No one has a crystal ball, Bollig noted, but the prospects of success are high based on past performance.
Chapters and members
Chapters should consider creating an outreach structure to complement GCSAA’s national efforts, noted Mona, which means that chapter members and leaders must accept that media and public relations activities are vital, and chapter members should participate in media training, develop and maintain up-to-date media contact lists and identify and position members who work well with the media and can speak on behalf of the chapter.
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GCSAA chapters that adopt the new chapter logo are able to leverage their identification with GCSAA’s national outreach efforts.. |
Chapters also can leverage GCSAA’s outreach investment for chapter benefit, he said, and noted that some chapters already have adopted the chapter form of GCSAA’s new logo, which allows chapters to be identified with all national GCSAA efforts.
A successful national outreach campaign, Bollig said, must be complemented by a “grassroots” effort on the local and regional level. “All politics is local,” he noted, “and all public relations are local. Media coverage is a function of access and providing relevant information.”
“Media will find a source,” Bollig told chapter delegates last fall, “and it will find information. If the subject is golf course conditioning, then you should be the source.”
Average salaries consistently improve
Superintendents all over the country have faced some tough weather challenges the past couple of years, but the weather pain may be eased some by the results of the latest GCSAA compensation and benefits survey, which shows a 7.1 percent increase in average base salaries since the last survey, in 2005.
The average base salary for survey respondents is reported at $73,782. Half of those filling out the survey earn more than $66,000 annually, 31.1 percent earn more than $80,000 each year, and 19.1 percent reported an annual salary of more than $95,000.
According to the Conference Board, a non-profit organization composed of business executives, overall national increases the last two years have averaged 3.5 percent, so GCSAA members have bested the national figure during two years that have been flat for the golf economy and have seen rising maintenance costs.
In 1993, the average annual salary for a superintendent was $44,500. This year’s survey was conducted for GCSAA by enetrix.
Making progress
As GCSAA’s efforts to promote the association and its Class A members rev up, it’s helpful to look at attitudinal comparisons that have been influenced by previous GCSAA messaging campaigns. The following are results from the National Golf Foundation’s Golfer and Employer Perceptions and Attitudes survey completed in 2006.
• 64 percent of golfers identified the golf course superintendent as key to their enjoyment of the game, the highest rating for any golf course employee
• 94 percent of golfers identified the superintendent as key to the economic vitality of the facility; 99 percent of employers did the same
• 89 percent of golfers rated GCSAA as a good or excellent organization, compared with 54 percent in 2002; employers did the same by 97 percent
• 48 percent of golfers identified GCSAA as the professional organization for the men and women who manage and maintain golf courses, compared with 18 percent in 2002 and 9 percent in 1996; 81 percent of employers identified GCSAA
• 85 percent of employers identified GCSAA as a leading golf organization
• 84 percent of employers believe that it’s important for superintendents to be members of a professional organization
The only backslide in the survey results came from avid golfers who were asked if they knew the name of their superintendent. A total of 55 percent of the 2006 respondents said they knew their superintendent’s name, while 63 percent said they did in 2003. In 1996, the figure was 55 percent.
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