WeChat Signs Up Four New Top Golfers to Enhance Global Exposure
As a popular social sport among WeChat users around the globe, golf represents a pursuit of excellence and a positive attitude towards challenges which echoes WeChat’s brand philosophy. The collaboration with top golfers and significant tournaments will enable WeChat’s ecosystem to create innovative applications for sports events, hence forging connections with global users and exploring ways to enhance its international exposure.
2018 marked the beginning of WeChat’s sports marketing strategy starting with golf. In April of that year, WeChat entered into sponsorship deals with top Chinese professional golfers Li Haotong, Dou Zecheng and Lin Xiyu, a milestone initiative that has highlighted its ethos of openness and connection and impressed mainstream overseas users with its international footprint through golf’s unique appeal.
All the three WeChat golfers have achieved brilliant results in the global arena over the past year. Li Haotong not only became the first golfer in China to be eligible to play in all four majors for two straight years, he also finished runner-up on two European Tour golf tournaments of the Turkish Airlines Open and the Saudi International. On April’s Masters Tournament that set a TV audience record, Li with his cap featuring the WeChat logo was captured by the camera together with the 14-time major winner, an occasion that had greatly expanded the global visibility of the brand. Apart from him, Dou Zecheng, the first Chinese player to earn a PGA Tour Card, won for China the first international championship of the year on the Bahamas Great Exuma Classic in January, and Lin Xiyu amazed the entire women’s golf circle with a hole-in-one on the LPGA Tour Bank of Hope Founders Cup.
In 2018, WeChat not only signed up Chinese golf stars, but also joined the WGC-HSBC Champions as an Official Partner and the PGA Tour's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am as an Official Sponsor. Its strategic partnership with world-renowned golf events features bespoke Mini Program, WeChat Pay, Mini Games and Official Accounts, all of which are designed to bring new technologies into sports for fans from home and abroad to enjoy unparalleled audience experience and for more global users to feel for themselves the brand’s attributes through golf’s unique appeal.
WeChat’s on-going global sports marketing strategy regarding golf has just begun. On its roadmap, WeChat will support more youngsters to engage in and promote golf as a healthy and active sport and lifestyle. Cherishing its ethos of openness that facilitates an ecosystem for communication and information exchange, WeChat will make its efforts to strengthen awareness of the brand among overseas users through sports.
Launched in 2011, Weixin/WeChat has been enhancing the lives of hundreds of millions of users with its innovative features. The most widely used Chinese social media platform integrates instant messaging and social entertainment, bringing about a mobile digital lifestyle on an easy to use app. Users get to engage in real-time communications via free text and multimedia messages, make voice/video calls or share photos on their “Moments”. Other lifestyle recreational features include “Games”, “Sticker Gallery”, and other functions. Continuously evolving around users' needs, Weixin/WeChat also offers enterprises “Official Accounts” to create original consumer experiences through its open platform. The core innovative features also include Mini Program to connect online and offline merchants and extended services such as Weixin/WeChat Pay to create a truly mobile digital and smart living. The combined number of monthly active users of Weixin and WeChat reached more than 1.11 billion as of end of March 2019. Weixin/WeChat has evolved into a connector and open platform across industries, connecting users with one another, with smart devices and with business services.
Liang Wenchong
– the first Chinese golfer to have made top 100 in the Official World Golf Ranking
“WeChat’s communication features are just great. As a loyal user of WeChat, I am thrilled about this opportunity to partner with the brand to grow the game of golf in China. Through this collaboration, I hope to make China’s golf development recognizable to the world and get WeChat better known to more people. ”
Liang Wenchong is a famous Chinese golfer who has won 21 champion titles in six countries, including wins in the European Tour, the Japan Golf Tour and the Asian Tour. He is also the first golfer in mainland China to have reached the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking. In July 2013, Liang became the third and only Chinese Working for Golf Ambassador for The R&A, the authority that administers the Rules of Golf.
Liu Yu
– a shiny rising star amongst China’s women golfers
“I would like to express my gratitude to WeChat’s trust in me as well as its support for me and for the game of golf in China. WeChat as a pioneer in social communication applications embraces innovation as much as I challenge myself on the golf course. In the future, I wish to grow up together with WeChat.”
Liu Yu is a Chinese woman golfer who currently ranks among top 50 worldwide and second in China. As a rookie in the LPGA tournaments, Liu has surprised the world once and again. Less than half way through the 2019 season, she has already secured three top-10 finishes including a runner-up on the LPGA Tour Bank of Hope Founders Cup with just one stroke behind.
He Muni
– “China’s Wonder Girl” on the golf course
“I am privileged to be sponsored by Wechat. WeChat is one of my most frequently used apps, and it is used by more and more players during the tournaments. I hope to introduce the lifestyle represented by WeChat to more overseas fans in the future.”
Norman Xiong
– a Chinese-American with exceptional golf talent
“WeChat is a brand with both great people and a stellar reputation, but its excellence goes beyond those two. I am proud to partner with WeChat, a company that shares my core values of good judgment and attentiveness, two traits that are imperative on the golf course.”