Brand Photography to Provoke Emotion

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Every golf course has photography, but not all have brand photography.

Take a look online at resort and golf club websites. The vast majority have professionally shot images portraying the venue and its amenities. Job done, you might think.

But what makes successful venues stand out from the crowd is an understanding of brand and how to use imagery to tell a compelling story and make an emotional connection with the customer.

In short, it’s the important difference between simply viewing a picture that portrays somewhere – and desiring to experience it. 

Images can forge reputations and influence customers to take action, from engaging and advocating on social media to actually booking a tee time or golf break.

The secret with photography is to go that one step further than your competitors and ensure your images reflect your brand story and experience.

And that means defining your brand story, creating a photographic brief aligned to your positioning and then carefully selecting the right photographer to interpret and execute that brief.

It is absolutely NOT about selecting the first course photographer that comes to mind and telling them to “go do your stuff”. Yet this is what happens most of the time.

We’ve helped launch many new high-end golf courses and resorts over the years and photography and video is central to brand storytelling and creating a reputation.

Currently, we are working with Heritage Golf Club in Mauritius to launch the new La Réserve Golf Links, opening December 2023.

Working with our client, we developed a carefully considered brand story and positioning statement: “The first and only contemporary links in the Indian Ocean, offering an unparalleled experience of pure golfing drama.”

We then selected and commissioned a photographer who we believed would best capture and communicate our brand story and experience.

We chose Swedish golf course photographer Jacob Sjöman, not only for his reputation and experience, but specifically for his style, appreciation of the wider landscape (which is a key selling point when panoramic ocean views are a unique aspect of the golf experience) and his expertise in aerial photography and video. (There are lots of people who can fly drones – few can fly, frame and capture content quite so beautifully.)

Ultimately, we wanted to create a suite of images that told the story of a distinct and dramatic new contemporary links that overlooks the Indian Ocean.

Jacob received a detailed brief from us (very few agencies provide detailed briefs, Jacob told us) but giving him ample flexibility to exercise his own creative freedom and expression. 

The results are world class. We recently released and publicised these images and the reaction has been exceptional. 

These images will now be used for the client’s website (which we also developed), social media, customer communications, tour operator and partner communications, advertising and all marketing communication channels.

While these are the first official photographs of the new course ahead of opening, we have been marketing the golf course and venue in advance, laying the foundations for a future launch.

Last year we commissioned CGIs (computer generated images) of La Resérve Golf Links to communicate the vision for the course, both from a media and PR perspective, and also to support commercial sales. 

While the stills and animations represent a significant investment, we are fortunate to have a client that understand the importance and power of brand communications to the long-term success of their business. 

If you’d like LANDMARK to help you create a brand story and reputation for your club or resort via brand photography, video and content, please contact direct: [email protected]