Melissa Hansen, Director of Membership & Marketing at The Club at Olde Cypress (Naples, Fla.), has a favorite branding exercise.
She suggests asking a member, a staff member, a guest, and two prospects to each describe your club in one sentence.
“Would their answers be the same?” she asks.
It’s a revealing question because it has very little to do with logos, websites, or marketing campaigns. Instead, it asks whether people experience the club in the same way, regardless of how they interact with it.
“The strongest clubs understand that branding isn’t something the marketing department owns,” Hansen says. “It’s something every department must deliver.”
Every interaction contributes to that experience, whether it takes place in the golf shop, the fitness center, the membership office, or the clubhouse dining room. If those interactions consistently reinforce the club’s identity, members and prospects are more likely to describe the club in similar terms. If they don’t, the gap may have less to do with marketing than with the member experience itself.
Continue the Conversation: Hansen will present a session on branding and club identity at the 2026 C+RB Engagement Summit, taking place October 5-6 at the University Club of Chicago. She’ll share practical strategies for defining what makes a club unique, aligning teams around that identity, and creating a consistent brand experience that members recognize at every touchpoint.
