Topgolf has selected Anomaly as its creative agency of record, reuniting the agency with Geoff Cottrill, the chief marketing officer for the sports entertainment company. Cottrill worked with the Stagwell Group shop when he was at Converse more than a decade ago. 

Anomaly edged out two agencies that Topgolf declined to name during the creative review; Cotttrill said its response to the brand’s brief was “far away better, more creative, and more on-strategy.” This is the third shop recently added to the company's roster: Mediahub is its media agency and Day One Agency was tapped for social earlier this year.  

Topgolf is a high-tech driving range coupled with a bar and a kitchen. The goal of the new campaign is to introduce the brand to non-golfers and broaden its reach to a global audience.

Listen: Topgolf CMO talks marketing strategies

Evolution of golf

Anomaly Founding Partner and Global Creative Officer Mike Byrne said that on a Monday this past May, Byrne and five of his colleagues visited a Topgolf location in Long Island, New York for three hours.

“It was a blast, it was a whole new game, almost like an evolution of golf,” Byrne said. “[We were there to] feel the experience, to eat the food and have some drinks and swing some golf clubs. We didn’t even know we were there for three hours.”

Byrne said that the in-person experience with Topgolf helped Anomaly with the brief, and Cottrill also credited the agency with having “spent a lot of time in our venues and getting to know our business” during the brief process in late May.

Cottrill worked with the shop during his time at Coca-Cola and Converse. Together, they worked on campaigns for Diet Coke and Smartwater and developed the “Made By You” campaign for the shoe shop’s iconic canvas product Chuck Taylor.

“We worked together on Converse for eight years,” Byrne said. "A lot of times in this business, you have those agency-client relationships that are lasting. You meet someone and just connect with them from a value standpoint. [Cottrill] is the kind of guy that asks you to scare him and pushes the agency, and those are the kind of clients that are the most fun to work with.”

Aggressive expansion

Under Cottrill’s leadership, Topgolf is looking to expand domestically and globally and attract customers outside of traditional golf courses. “We’re looking at a global brand campaign. We’ll be launching it later this year and early next year, and Anomaly will be the lead on it,” Cottrill said. He added that the brand is planning on future venues in China, Thailand, Scotland and Germany, but the first step of their aggressive expansion will begin in the U.S.

Topgolf’s most recent venue opened in Renton, Washington, last week, and the next opening venue will be located in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Anomaly and Topgolf are in the process of finalizing the details of their work together, but both companies will focus on the idea of “play.” In a podcast with Ad Age last month that discussed Topgolf’s “playful” social marketing strategies, Cottrill said, “I get up every day believing the world needs more play in it.” Cottrill reiterated Topgolf’s goal of letting its customers “have fun and let go” of the stress of their lives.

“Our goal is to bring in more people into the game of golf, and to make the game more accessible and diverse,” Cottrill said. “Our business is about encouraging people to play more often in their life. Getting up every day, thinking about how we can change the game for the better by letting more people play in the game,” he added, “you don’t get many opportunities in your career to work on impacting a sport that’s been around for over a hundred years.”