We don’t believe influencer marketing is about identifying someone with a social media following and giving them product. We believe it is about identifying people who merit others’ attention and are capable of changing perception because of the remarkable way they live their lives and pursue their passions. Hence our simple, but challenging, idea: Identify golfers who are upending preconceptions about the game, infusing it with a fresh approach and meaning, and help them tell their story in the most powerful way possible.

We found our influencers in filmmaker Imraan Christian, and his group of multi-talented, urban golfers in South Africa. Inspired to play the game by Congolese golf champion, Dada Shiva, when he moved from his native Congo to Cape Town, Christian and his friends created a very different kind of golf club.

For these friends golf is the antithesis of exclusive. It’s about new places, bonding with new people, and reclaiming their post-apartheid city. So that was the story they would tell in their short film, which created entirely by the friends themselves. The film is as much about the friends’ lives and the way they connect with each other, as it is a Nike Golf lookbook - although it certainly served as a compelling version of the latter given its range, seamlessly weaving together Cape Town’s gritty urbanism, its natural beauty, and this band’s natural style and inspiring outlook.

With only organic pass-along to drive viewership, more than 4 million people took the time to view the content and learn about Christian and his friends. Of those, more than 45,000 were sufficiently moved to like or comment, with the overwhelming social sentiment being - exactly as hoped - that this made golf much more appealing to them than they had ever found it previously.

With a number of people clicking through from the content to see Nike’s new street-inspired gear, the brand calculated that the program exceeded their anticipated return-on-investment by 320%. Most importantly, perhaps, almost all of the featured golfers landed significant contracts to showcase their creative or sporting talents. That gives these Cape Town friends an ongoing platform to influence others; to show that golf can belong to anyone and say anything it wants; and to ultimately change the game.