Tiger Woods’ Sun Day Red debuts—behind the new apparel brand and its marketing approach

Tiger Woods’ new apparel brand sold its first items today without much promotion beyond digital marketing and the considerable branding power of the golfing great himself. Sun Day Red, a collaboration between Woods and the golf equipment manufacturer TaylorMade Golf announced in February, reflects his habit of wearing red during the final rounds of golf tournaments. It launched at midnight on May 1 as an athlete-inspired direct-to-consumer brand specializing in what TaylorMade execs describe as “athluxury”—elegant activewear with prices as high as $500 for a sweater. The line includes golf-specific gear such as gloves and shoes, business casual golf wear, and lifestyle items for off the course. The initial lineup for sale, called “The Hunt,” is inspired by the colors Woods will be wearing at the PGA Championship in Louisville, Kentucky May 16-19. Lines for women and kids are planned in the future. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs For Woods, the new clothing line succeeds the one he developed with Nike over the course of a 27-year partnership that came to an end early this year. Watch Nike’s most memorable Tiger Woods ads TaylorMade had been Woods’ golf club supplier since Nike backed out of that business in 2017, learning through the process of making his clubs about the player’s famous attention to detail and exacting standards, said David Abeles, CEO of TaylorMade Golf. This knowledge turned out to be an advantage for the company when it pitched to win Woods’ new apparel business. The branding and logo reflect what is important to Woods, said Brad Blankinship, president of Sun Day Red. The brand name refers to Woods’ superstition—passed down from his mother, Kultida—that red was a power color that helped him to win on Sunday, the final day of a tournament. It is spelled in three words to reflect the “rule of threes” that Woods likes to observe. The logo is a tiger with 15 stripes—one for each of Woods’ major titles—that also includes a nod to his children. It replaces the famous “TW” logo that remains with Nike. “We brought multiple concepts to Tiger. Different brands, different brand marks, different ideas and pathways,” said Abeles. “But it wasn’t until we brought Sun Day Red in its current form that both parties—Tiger’s team led by Tiger and our team—got together and said this is this is exactly what we're looking for … He looked across the table and said, ‘You guys get me.’” Scott Frost, head of marketing for Sun Day Red, said the brand has done very little paid advertising in launching the brand, relying instead on big opportunities for earned media—Woods’ appearances on the “Tonight” and “Today” shows this week, for example—and on building a digital audience. Its work has all been done in-house except for launch creative from AKQA. “Most of our efforts have been building [a] social audience to establish the brand on social and the website, building an email audience to talk to, so that when we start selling, we’re not talking to zero people, we’re talking to hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people.” Sun Day Red has about 400,000 social followers, three-quarters of them on Instagram—where they see lots of photos and videos of Woods, and plenty of well-shot product teasers. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sun Day Red (@sundayred) “We’re going [to] voraciously create content,” Frost said. “Every day we’re doing something different. We did a lifestyle shoot last week with some really cool models. We did a product shoot on Friday. We’re going to be with Tiger next month doing a day really focused on the product as well.” The goal, said Frost, is to be “able to push things out on all the different channels on our website, to tell our own story.” Frost called the brand’s approach to digital marketing “very progressive,” yet “pretty traditional” from an earned media perspective. A flurry of attention accompanied the announcement of the new brand in February and another will come when the clothes hit the street this week. “There are things you can do when you have a celebrity athlete like Tiger that you can’t do with everybody,” Frost said. Selling direct-to-consumer will demonstrate the demand is there before expanding to retail, said Blankinship, who noted that he could see expanding to high-end stores “when they’re chomping at the bit to get the brand in the doors,” as opposed to now. Read more about TaylorMade’s DTC efforts Frost said he could envision a more traditional advertising approach and athlete spokespeople beyond Woods further down the road, but said “I think we’ll always live digital.” “I don't think we'll ever be something where it's a TV first, or a traditional paid media first—we’ll always live in this progressive space,” he said. “Being able to leverage an athlete like Tiger will always be at its core, but also at some point, to being able to tell other stories of people who share that mindset, the values of Tiger, as well.”

Tiger Woods’ Sun Day Red debuts—behind the new apparel brand and its marketing approach

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