HowDidiDo Media appoints Azalea

HowDidiDo.com is Europe's largest golfing community

Europe’s largest golfing community, HowDidiDo, has engaged Hampshire-based PR and marketing specialist Azalea to handle its communications.

More than 250,000 golfers have registered with the website, which also contains the results of more than 21 million rounds along with the handicaps and scores of in excess of 1.1m golfers.

Standard membership is free and the plethora of statistics available allows any golfer to analyse and compare performance with other players at their own club or across the 1.1 m golfers.

The service is also available free to any golf club – and consequently its members – which uses the market-leading CLUB2000 software from Club Systems International, used by more than 1,500 clubs already.

Azalea will take immediate responsibility for raising the profile of HowDidiDo through both consumer and trade channels and Barry Dyett, managing director of HowDidiDo Media, said: “We have been very careful in selecting a communications partner that will deliver the reach and relationships we desire.

“Azalea has been well-known to us for some time and we are delighted to have them on board.”

Azalea’s UK managing director, Sean Noble, looks forward to furthering what has already been exponential growth for HowDidiDo. He added: “Our aim will be to elevate the HowDidiDo brand and services to their rightful place at the very heart of the UK golf community.”

Azalea’s portfolio already includes some outstanding golf resorts and courses – La Manga Club, in Murcia, Spain; Son Gual, Mallorca; Fairmont St Andrews, Scotland; and Legend Golf & Safari Resort, in South Africa – the Irish national tourist authority, Fáilte Ireland; and Europe’s most purchased golf brand, Masters Golf.

www.howdidido.com | www.theazaleagroup.com

Adding the feminine touch

A month has passed since I wrote my note
But I should have known this right from the start
Only snow can keep us together
Snow can freeze your wife but
Ice can break your arm...

It seems the snow has left us for good so it's back to the world of PR, marketing, coffee-making, middle-age crises and lunchtime Facebook Scrabble reports.

But hang on...

Walked out this morning, don't believe what I saw
A renowned PR operator knocking on our door
Seems I'm not alone in doing PR
Hundred billion just like me, heading for the bar…

Obviously doesn't work if you're not familiar with the 80s' Police classic Message in a Bottle – but those of us of a certain age are, and, with all due respect, our new PR specialist would have been in her leg warmers and puffball skirt bopping away to that with the rest of us.

In a hugely roundabout way that brings me round to welcoming the latest guru to the Azalea fold. You may know her as Melanie Faldo, for it was as in 1990 she established Melanie Faldo Public Relations & Marketing, following her marriage to the former world number one golfer Nick Faldo.

It is as Melanie Hickey that we welcome her into our waiting arms (metaphorically Mr Hickey) and are delighted so to do.

Melanie will work on a number of forthcoming projects beginning with – but not limited to, say the lawyers – Azalea’s new contract with Fairmont St Andrews (about which more later).

Melanie, second right, meets her new client, from left, Graeme Dawson (Leisure Sales & Marketing Manager), Jane Frazer (Director of Sales & Marketing), and Stewart Elder (Golf Sales Manager)

She brings with her a wealth of experience and a gilt-edged picture frame called Nigel.

She will also, of course, be given access to this blog, which means we may get stuff about fluffy kittens and crocheting instead of Monster Trucks and Chuck Norris DVDs, but it's about time we got in touch with our feminine side.

Welcome Melanie.

Oh, by the way, there is a proper press release available here...

BUNKY