In 2022, United Airlines announced their commitment to being a force for good with their new brand platform, Good Leads the Way.

Part of this commitment was reimagining how their sports sponsorships could do more good in the world. Starting with golf—a sport that is shrouded in a legacy of exclusivity—and tackling one of its biggest challenges in diversifying the sport: access.

Long term sponsors of the PGA Tour, United partnered with the organization to leverage sponsorship dollars to support golf programs at HBCUs with their one of their biggest challenges: enough funding to fly to tournaments.

United and the PGA Tour supplied over $500,000 in travel grants to 250 student athletes at 51 HBCUs, allowing them to fly to tournament sites that may have previously been out of reach.

‘Golf Is Ours’ tells the story of those golfers.

In a campaign that spans broadcast, OLV, digital, and radio, ‘Golf Is Ours’ centers on the perspective of young Black golf players from HBCUs who are helping to push golf culture forward.

We meet 5 student golfers from University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) on their home golf course. Through moving portraits and candid-style footage, we capture their passion for the sport as the VO, spoken by two students, delivers a powerful proclamation of belonging.

‘Golf Is Ours’ is an optimistic statement of inclusion, representation and access—as the students say in their own words, golf is for everybody. Including them.

The golfers declare, “Golf is Black. Golf is mine. Golf is ours. Golf is for all of us.”

United’s former marketing efforts with the PGA Tour considered the average golf enthusiast or casual air traveler as the primary consumer target.

To make this work as impactful as possible, we knew we had to approach the audience differently. We treated the grant recipients: 250 diverse student athletes, and the future generation of Black and diverse golfers they’d inspire, as our primary audience.

With that pivot, our strategy became simple. Center the voices of the golfers above the brands’.

Rather than simply announcing the United and PGA Tour sponsorship, the work offered an opportunity to amplify the voices and stories of young Black golfers.

This time, this Good Leads the Way tale wasn’t just a story of an airline. This was a story of young, inspiring student athletes.

Rather than simply highlighting brands behind the sponsorship, we saw an opportunity to amplify the voices and stories of the grants’ recipients, young Black golfers. ‘Golf Is Ours’ meaningfully passed the microphone to the golfers, so they could represent their stories authentically. In our radio spot, we hear a Black student-golfer explain what golf means to him and why he believes “golf is for everyone.”

Radically different from the airline-and-sports puns that surmised United’s former PGA sponsorship marketing, ‘Golf Is Ours’ helped drive significant lifts in perception of the brand’s leadership and efforts in DEI (+42%). As part of the wider Good Leads the Way campaign, it contributed to positive perceptions of United as a leader in aviation (+83%).