What's Next for the Shaw Charity Classic in 2019

It's a new year and much like many of you out there, we have taken time to be introspective and set some New Years resolutions. As we enter our 7th year of running this event after another successful year, in every regard, we have to consider where to go from here? Our charitable impact can be bigger, our spectator experience can be improved, our field can be higher ranked, we can bring on more sponsors and create more impactful activations for them.

The general theme is that we can continue to improve an event that receives a lot of acclaim already. Avoid complacency and strive for growth. Our team met following the 2018 tournament several times to debrief and review. We identified areas for improvement and acknowledged areas that we executed well. The guiding thought through our meetings was, what can we do different and better? Below is an examination of those areas we are going to improve, our New Years resolutions.

Expand our Network

We have been fortunate to have many great partners since 2013 who have used our hospitality venues to host clients, brought executives out to our Pro-Am, and have used our event as a platform to promote their brand. We are grateful for all of them, and work hard to make partnering with us a good business decision. This year, with a bigger development team, our focus is on growth. We have more room for hospitality clients, we have advanced our advertising capabilities and we continue to create new unique activation opportunities. The objective is to reach out to more companies, have more meetings, present more proposals and create more partnerships.

Improve our Look

Last year we entered into a working partnership with ZGM, a local marketing agency. Together we launched our "Kids need heroes." campaign and have slowly been working to update the look and feel of everything you see with the Shaw Charity Classic branding. The world is becoming more and more visual and if your brand does not have a consistent, vibrant, and noticeable look and feel to it then you are losing pace. We want to develop our own style that is used consistently throughout our communication including all of the following mediums:

• Social Media Channels
• E-blasts
• Sales Collateral
• Digital and Print Advertisements
• Tickets
• On-Site Signage

Ease the Process

We want to make sure that being a partner of the Shaw Charity Classic is as seamless as possible. Once a contract is signed we don't actually have that much contact with our clients until 6 weeks before the tournament. We send the occasional update and if we host a special, off-season event we will invite them, but for the most part until we send them their credentials there is not a lot of interaction. The tricky part comes from us having a lot of documentation and information we need to get to our clients in a short period. So this year we are going to centralize the process and build a platform into our website so that our clients can log in and get everything they need in one location.

We also want to look for more ways to add value to our partners and have identified one specifically. The feedback we have received is that our clients have some of their hospitality tickets go unclaimed or have to send more invitations than expected before they fill their suites. The funny thing, they say, is that the people who come have a great experience so they definitely see the value. We will work with our partners to ensure that they have all materials possible to communicate to their guests exactly the kind of VIP experience to expect when they get through the gates at Canyon Meadows. Some of our initial ideas are to create a "hype video" showing what it's like to be hosted at the tournament, putting together a template invitation that has enough details for the guest to get a good picture, and to work with our partners to develop a timeline that will let them fill their suites with ease.

Talking About Charity

Our event is associated with so many incredible charities doing important work in the Alberta community. We love our golfers and want to put on the most entertaining golf tournament possible, but we want the charitable impact of our event to always be the main focus. Our goal is to increase the awareness of our charity program, Shaw Birdies for kids presented by Altalink, and the fact that it is helping over 180 charities stretch the impact of the donations they are receiving. This is not a new focus for us, but we will continue to look for ways to improve our charity messaging as long as we are running the tournament.

So it's a New Year and, for us, it's a new opportunity to put on an event that stands out in a community full of world class sporting and entertainment events. Our team is always looking to connect with new people even if you're not looking to become a partner but want to learn more about our charity program, or what goes into running a PGA TOUR Champions event, or just to hear a story about Miguel Angel Jimenez...please reach out!