The average punter is looking for something more. Something engaging. Something challenging. Something Instagram-worthy. They’re after competitive socialising. Beat your mates (or your significant other) in a game of skill and you’re on for a good night. Lose to your mates (or let your significant other win) and you’re still on for a good night – because you’re already in a bar.
In Leicester, this market niche is filled by Caddyshackers and East Street Lanes. From the brains behind the Steamin’ Billy pub company Caddyshackers is the city’s first indoor crazy golf course, and East Street Lanes is the city centre’s only bowling alley.
Competitive socialising is clearly a good idea (Caddyshackers was sold out every night within its first three months of opening), so the niche grasp enjoyed by the two venues would only last so long. That’s why they needed intensely strong branding to keep them on top of the pile when more competition filters through. Arch were brought in to ensure the Caddyshakers and ESL brands were right for the Leicester audience.
Both brands needed creating from the ground up – that meant developing logos, fonts, brand guidelines, a unique tone of voice, brand imagery for menus and a complete, interactive website to facilitate bookings. And that’s before we started creating individual campaigns two promote the venues once they were open.
The brief for the Caddyshackers brand was based in-part on other successful inner-city golf venues. Our aim was to craft a brand which was weird and wonderful enough to entice people to the venue. The Caddyshackers look is unique – the wild design work adding to its shareability. Of course, all of this wackiness extends from the fact that Caddyshackers is crazy crazy golf. Reflected in the brand and the course itself, the zaniness is the selling point. What’s more instagram-worthy than something out of the ordinary?
The idea of crazy crazy golf couldn’t just be chaos. It needed to come together in a website that served the dual purpose of reflecting the brand and encouraging bookings. Using innovative graphics, cheeky, down-to-earth copy and video, the Caddyshackers website quickly became a cornerstone of the brand, and has developed into a key sales point for the venues various offerings.
East Street Lanes was opened a few months after Caddyshackers. Whilst the two entities shares a venue (on Calais Hill, Leicester) they are two entirely different brands with distinct personalities. For East Street Lanes, we were tasked with capturing the essence of 1950s diner/bowlarama culture – a play on the style of American Graffiti, mixed with a broader sense of Americana.
We created a suite of assets – from the logo to the menus, plus a host of social videos to grow a crucial online following. Again, we developed a brand tone of voice and an interactive website to give East Street Lanes a quality online presence.
