Driving local business engagement for The R&A ahead of The Open at Royal Birkdale

Services: PR & Communications, Strategic Communications,

The client

Based in St Andrews, The R&A operates a series of world class championships including The Open and AIG Women’s Open. The Open is golf’s original championship and one of the world’s greatest sporting events. Played since 1860 on links golf courses, with qualifying competitions across the world, The Championship brings the greatest competitors in golf to legendary courses on the British coastline. The Open attracts hundreds of thousands of spectators every year bringing an economic uplift worth hundreds of millions to the local economy.

In 2026, the Championship was be played at Royal Birkdale, a golf course in Southport, Merseyside that was founded more than 135 years ago. The course has hosted The Open 10 times since its debut as a course in 1954, with 2026 being the 11th Championship at the Links.

The challenge

With The Open returning to Royal Birkdale in 2026, The R&A wanted to engage business owners within a two-hour drive of Royal Birkdale and demonstrate the amazing opportunities available at this year’s Championship.

While The R&A has exceptional relationships with golfing and national media, Social was approached to make the most of its own strong connections with local journalists and understanding of the region’s business media.

The R&A tasked Social with developing a compelling strategy to engage local business owners, emphasising the competition’s history, heritage and efficacy as a foundation for building client relationships. It was pivotal that Social’s strategy raise interest in the revamped hospitality offering for business clients looking to attend The Open.

The solution

Social developed a strategy that would leverage both earned and owned media opportunities, emphasising the role that thought leadership alongside paid-for print and digital advertising can play in getting customers to engage with the brand and the offer.

We embraced opportunities at three separate B2B-focused publishers: Insider, TheBusinessDesk and Business-Live, to ensure we spoke to the business audience across the North West and developed unique compelling stories for each publisher to run – approaching the story in a different way each time.

Through our relationships, The Open was also able to contribute to a piece run in North West Business Insider that discussed the growth and importance of a high quality hospitality offer for attendees at major events.

We also engaged local news sites that would be interested in the announcement of the location of the 2028 Championship. Responding to the announcement that the 2028 Championship would be played at Royal Lytham and St Annes in Lancashire on the day of publication, Social ensured that the news was shared with relevant local titles; BBC Radio Lancashire; LancsLive, Lancashire Evening Post, Blackpool Gazette and Lancashire Life, securing pickup in each and the top story on Radio Lancashire bulletins.

At the midway point of the campaign, Social was required to reallocate some of its time to develop a bespoke advertising campaign to be rolled out in high profile areas in target regions – Carnaby Street, London; Liverpool Media Wall; Princess Street, Manchester.

Responding to a brief, Social developed two concepts that would work with The Open’s existing branding and requirements and could be fully rolled out in short order. In less than a month, Social was able to go from a brief to seeing the adverts on big screens in major cities.

The impact

Social’s work led to significant spikes of interest to The Open and its hospitality offering.

Utilising newsletter advertising at Insider, The Open’s advertising campaign performed well above where the publisher typically sees engagement. Insider promotes a typical anticipated click through rate of between 0.1% and 0.3%. The Open’s secured 1.27%.

Over the course of one week, and nine newsletters, The campaign secured 601 clicks. As a comparison, other top banners that ran in February and March ran close achieved between 140-160 clicks.

Blogs and thought leadership, focused on the long-term benefits of relationship building at events such as The Open also generated interest in the 2026 offer

Feedback from the team at The R&A was that they had seen a spike in activity directly from the campaign we developed, and high quality leads were being directed to the hospitality section of their website. Sales of hospitality tickets for the weekday sessions sold out, which was a positive indication that the business audience Social was engaging had responded to the campaign.

Display advertising that originated from Social’s own concepts and design work was seen in some of the highest profile areas across the UK, telling a short story about The Open in high traffic areas.

The client

The challenge

The solution

The impact

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