Molly Carroll, Vice President of Communications & Marketing, Ocean Reef Club
Clubs change. Membership evolves, amenities expand, expectations shift and the way a club communicates has to move with all of it. The harder question is how much can change before a club starts to feel like something else entirely.
Molly Carroll thinks the answer starts with knowing exactly who you are.
As Vice President of Communications & Marketing at Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, Fla., Carroll sees brand as much more than marketing. It is built through the stories a club tells, but also through the consistency of its service, staffing, programming and amenities. And it only works if the identity club leaders believe they are communicating matches the one members actually experience.
Ocean Reef has an unusually useful tool for testing that assumption. Every five years, the club conducts a Membership Census, giving Carroll and her team insight into who its members are and helping provide a roadmap for where the club goes next.
Ahead of her session, “Branding Matters: Building an Identity Across the Club,” at the 2026 Engagement Summit, October 5-6 at the University Club of Chicago, Carroll explains how Ocean Reef protects a distinctive identity while continuing to evolve, why consistency is central to member trust and what its Membership Census has taught the club about understanding the people behind the brand.
Club + Resort Business (C+RB): Ocean Reef has evolved significantly over the years. How do you make changes without losing sight of what makes the club unique?
Molly Carroll (MC): By remembering and celebrating how we got here.
C+RB: What’s one challenge that comes with communicating on behalf of a large, complex organization?
MC: Ensuring that all stakeholders support the vision.
C+RB: How do you know when a club’s messaging is aligned and when it isn’t?
MC: When the voice is familiar, and you don’t have to question where the message is coming from or why. If it comes as a surprise to the membership, it isn’t aligned.
C+RB: Without giving away your session, what’s one question club leaders should be asking themselves about their club’s identity and brand consistency?
MC: Is your perception of the identity and brand the same as your membership’s?
C+RB: Has member trust become harder to earn in recent years? What about prospective member trust?
MC: With our members, it’s been the opposite. The silver lining COVID provided was allowing the club to showcase communication, compassion, safety and even creativity in the services and amenities we provided. Through ongoing storytelling and communications, we have been able to continue that momentum.
As for prospective members, we have been on a waitlist since 2015 and froze it in 2022, so our level of engagement with prospective members has been quite low in recent years.
-Molly Carroll, Vice President of Communications & Marketing, Ocean Reef Club
C+RB: What role does consistency play in building credibility with members?
MC: I think it is the key to credibility. Consistency in service, staffing, programming and amenities are the fundamentals for building a club brand and, when executed, create loyal members.
C+RB: What are you most looking forward to discussing with attendees in Chicago?
MC: Probably our Membership Census. The data has given us incredible insight into our membership and provided a roadmap for the future.
