USGA’s US Open and Celebrity/Influencer Preview Day Tournament

Facing stagnation among younger demographics in the game (due in part to Tiger Woods physical struggles and absence from the game), the USGA - sought to reinvigorate interest and drive buzz outside its endemic audience to its’ premiere event, the US Open.  Zim Strategies was tasked with identifying and overseeing a limited celebrity influencer marketing campaign to help draw increased interest, exposure and engagement with non-endemic, younger audiences in the Open, as well as the sport overall.  The celebrity influencer had to be one who played and really  enjoyed the game; would be able to translate that love and excitement to their audience leveraging multiple outlets/platforms available to them,  in addition to their own social handles.  

Working with Bunim/Murray Productions and WWE, Zim Strategies secured a product placement episode for US Open (USGA) on USA Network’s top reality show -The Miz and Mrs. featuring WWE Superstar Mike “The Miz” Mizanin. The storyline centered around The Miz skipping out on his “move back to LA” duties to secretly participate in the US Open Celebrity/Influencer Preview Day Golf Tournament prior to the Open.  In addition to the episode, content from The Miz’s participation was featured across WWE’s owned platforms including the brand’s highly viewed steaming network, WWE Network, and its premiere show, This Week on the WWE; In addition, extended video posts were featured on WWE and USA Network’s YouTube Channels. The activation was also covered in select media outlets such as Golf Digest. 

The results were very successful. The Miz and Mrs. episode’s first run on USA Network had 1.056M viewers. Multiple presentations on the WWE Network were seen in more than 100 countries and 1.5M+ US subscribers.  Videos across YouTube received more than 619K views. In addition, stories across WWE’s site and other media sites yielded over 40.5M media impressions.

Product Placement/ Influencer Marketing