A $55 million expansion doesn’t give you time to figure things out as you go.
When SPORTIME undertook the John McEnroe Tennis Academy expansion, the pressure was real: new courts, new capacity, and a business that needed to generate revenue from that investment immediately after opening. Here’s what directing creative at that scale taught me…
Revenue capture is a creative problem.
Most people think of brand and marketing as things that happen after the business decisions are made. In this case, I was brought in early enough to shape how the expansion was positioned from the start, not just what it looked like, but what story it told, who it targeted, and when those messages went out.
The goal wasn’t just awareness. It was ensuring that when the doors opened, there were members ready to walk through them. That meant aligning the creative timeline with the sales and operations timeline, not running parallel to it.
Every asset has a job.
At this scale, you can’t afford unfocused creative. Every piece of collateral, whether digital, print, social, or environmental, had a specific role in the customer journey. Some assets were designed to drive membership inquiries. Others were designed to retain existing members and get them excited about new offerings. Others were for press and partner audiences.
Getting clear on the job of each asset before designing it saved enormous amounts of revision time and kept the campaign coherent.
Brand consistency isn’t a design problem. It’s a communication problem.
With multiple stakeholders, multiple locations, and multiple audiences, the hardest part wasn’t making things look good. It was making sure everyone understood what the brand was supposed to say and why. I spent as much time presenting strategy to leadership as I did executing it with the creative team.
The takeaway for anyone working on a high-stakes launch: get alignment on the strategy early and document it clearly. A brand brief isn’t bureaucracy. It’s protection.
What I’d do differently.
I’d push harder for a post-launch measurement framework from the start. We tracked inquiries and web traffic, but I would have built more granular attribution to understand which specific creative assets were driving the most conversions. That data would have made the next campaign significantly sharper.
Big launches are exciting. They’re also the best education you can get, because the stakes make every decision matter.
