Tom Watson, an 18-year MasterCard ambassador and golf pro, is most recognized for his 5 Open Championship victories. After being a consistent golf fixture across 5 decades, Tom announced that the 2015 Open Championship would be his last. His retirement from the tournament would strike a sentimental note from golf fans globally.

For the first time, we enabled avid golfers everywhere to show their appreciation (whether they were at the tournament or not) for golfing legend Tom Watson in honor of his retirement from the Open.

With the #HatsOfftoTom campaign, MasterCard gave fans a chance to honor Tom by taking a hats off tribute picture or video and sharing it.

Prior to the tournament, we created hype for Tom among global golf fans with a two-minute tribute video of Tom’s most iconic moments.

We invited golf influencers to share their own #HatsOfftoTom tributes and posted a series of interviews with Tom across our social channels.

As posts came in, we created a series of tribute videos from Tom’s friends and family to continue the momentum.

At the tournament, we surprised attendees with commemorative hats. We installed a digital photo booth for attendees to pose with their hats off on the Swilcan Bridge and share it online directly, while a giant screen streamed #HatsOfftoTom posts.

We responded to all participants who shared their tributes, but ensured Tom was taking notice, too. We shared pictures of Tom visiting the screen in appreciation of the posts from his fans and A few lucky fans received a personal video response from Tom himself.

MasterCard surpassed its set objectives:

• Increased on-site card usage share by 9.5% over 2014

• Dominated The Open among patrons with 50% Share of Voice

• Over 8X the benchmark engagements on Twitter and 11X on Facebook

In addition,

• Over 3,000 golf fans honored Tom with #HatsOffToTom tributes

• The Guardian featured a double page sports-section spread featuring Tom and reminding readers (18MM unique monthly visitors) to participate in #HatsOffToTom –shared 140 times on social

• RantSports.com featured an article including our video reel with a #HatsOffToTom call to action (1.5MM unique monthly visitors).

• Reputable golf publications, such as Golfing World and The European Tour, participated in #HatsOffToTom on Twitter

• Golf professionals who shared their own #HatsOfftoTom posts earned the campaign an estimated 988K impressions through their social accounts

#HatsOfftoTom enabled thousands of golf fans to participate in a priceless sendoff for golfing legend Tom Watson. To build our relationship with each fan, we responded to each fan post and ensured Tom was taking notice of their tributes. A few lucky fans even got their own custom, real-time reply video from Tom Watson himself.

The insight that led to our idea was that golf fans love access to their favorite professionals.

We discovered that when a player crosses the Swilcan Bridge at St. Andrews for the final time, it is customary for them to thank fans by removing their hat in a touching moment. Fans do the same in return.

MasterCard’s opportunity was therefore to bring golf fans at the tournament and around the world closer to Tom through his iconic moment of departure.

In 2015, MasterCard was a sponsor of The Open Championship, one of the most anticipated golfing events of the year. While the tournament itself takes place in St. Andrews, The Open is a truly global event, which is watched and celebrated around the world.

MasterCard is extensively involved with golf; it has relationships with high-profile champions and offers fantastic golf benefits to its cardholders. The Open sponsorship was an opportunity to increase awareness of this association with golf and drive brand affinity and engagement amongst golfers.

MasterCard’s specific objectives were to:

• Increase on-site card usage share by 7% over the 2014 Open

• Own a Share of Voice among patrons of at least 30%

• Double the Facebook & Twitter engagement rate benchmark of 2.49%