Be meaningfully different! And other lessons from an industry disruptor

What do you do with a centuries old industry that’s been stagnating for years and catering to an increasingly ageing consumer? Change the rules and evolve it positively for a new generation. 

Launched with a vision to rejuvenate the sport, LIV Golf is a new global golf league that targets a global audience of 360 million fans, breathing new life into the sport. With 13 teams, a 14-tournament schedule, a faster format, events that are fun, noisy and exciting, and some of the world’s best golfers, they are ‘Golf but Louder’.  Radically redefining the sport, changing the traditional format and disrupting the incumbents, LIV Golf is also enhancing the game’s societal impact as it grows. Have a look at their event films to see the difference.

Ross Antrobus, LIV Golf’s VP of Insight, Analytics & Loyalty shared with us 5 ways to be a positive disruptor:

  1. Overcome resistance to change: If you’re going to change things up, you will need to educate people about what you’re doing to bring them along with you and solve problems they didn’t even know they had.
  2. Know your market: Being specific about your audience and make sure there is an appetite for your brand, including having a clear consumer purpose and bringing people along at every point.
  3. Don’t underestimate the competition: Understanding your competition’s ability to adapt and challenge is essential, which means planning for a range of scenarios and deciding when and how to respond.
  4. Be meaningfully different: Being different should be for a reason, and the excitement around challenging the norm helps you to create a connection with fans – they become your fellow collaborators for change.
  5. Be a positive disruption: Being seen as a ‘disruptor’ or a ‘challenger brand’ can have negative connotations, even for your own team.  Instead, focus on being an ‘improver’ or ‘evolver’, a brand that changes things for the better and adds value and growth to the whole category.

Even the non-golfers among us were keen to book our spot at the next LIV Golf event to see their positive disruption in action.