12 hours ago
Inside Former Minecraft Boss Jonas Mårtensson's Cleeks Culture Play
Cleeks general manager Jonas Mårtensson
Before taking the reins as general manager of Cleeks Golf Club—the LIV Golf team captained by Martin Kaymer—Jonas Mårtensson helped scale Minecraft, the best-selling video game of all time, which Microsoft acquired in 2014 for $2.5 billion. But can the former Mojang Studios CEO replicate his success building fairway culture the way he once did with pixelated playgrounds?
So far, nine months into the new gig, Mårtensson is having a bigger blast on tour than he did during a decade of overseeing the beloved blocky 3D world where users can build anything. While he won't directly compare the challenges of managing Minecraft to attempting to turn a LIV Golf team into a household name, he's crystal clear on which role he prefers.
Pixels to Pin Flags
'I think this way more fun for many reasons. I'm a golfer. I love golf. I think this is the most fun I've had in my career,' he intimated. 'I wouldn't want to compare how difficult things are—but with Minecraft, when I started there were 25 people, and there were about 1000 when I left. That was difficult. This is kind of a start-up on steroids, which is amazing. It's a completely different beast.'
'I came from a very large organization at Microsoft, and now my team is just the players, caddies and I have four other people,' Mårtensson said, adding that transition feels like reliving the early days of his career when he was starting companies, only now with a wealth of experience to draw on.
One of the first moves Mårtensson made when he took the franchise's helm was a logo refresh, hiring design firm AKQA to update Cleeks brand positioning.
'At the time I thought the visual identity of Cleeks didn't really tell the story we wanted to tell. We had a lot of conversations with our Captain Martin Kaymer and the team to decide what is the brand position we want and who do we want to be when we grow up?'
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A cleek is an antiquated driving iron that achieved widespread use from the 1880s through the early 1920s so reverence for the roots of the game run deep but the brand also needed to evolve.
They landed on the tagline 'tradition refreshed' to pay homage to the game's heritage while at the same time holding the door wide open to new fans.
'We love the sport. We want to celebrate and honor the traditions of the sport and we want to also refresh it and be part of this new era which LIV is spearheading. That's how we ended up there and we are doing it by being at the intersection of art, music and fashion.'
Collaborations this year with Brooklyn's Public Drip on an apparel collection and leather goods maven Martin Key around a weekend bag are steps in that direction. Coming down the pipe in August, the team is launching a collaboration with The Rookies, the Australia‑based global platform for budding digital artists which has over 100,000 members.
'We're doing a project with them and I'm not going to tell you everything about it because it needs to be a surprise. We will use the golf bag as a canvas for an art project with them where we are inviting that community to be creative.'
If Mårtensson has his way the teed-up C logo Kaymer and his compadres sport on their caps will transcend golf the same way Michael Jordan's Jumpman logo and Ferrari's prancing stallion did. The first step is having people develop an affinity for the Cleeks.
'You have to have people that love and it and we have to build a community,' Mårtensson explained on the route to reaching that level of fame which is his aspiration.
'It helps when people who other people look up to and can relate to are wearing the logo. That's what happened with the Yankees logo, it became a cultural phenomenon with lots of celebrities wearing the brand.'
Trophies First?
Typically, sports franchises that resonate pile on victories. People tend to gravitate towards winners and so far the Cleeks, currently in 12th spot in the team standings with their top player Adrian Meronk, who won in Riyadh, sitting in 15th in the individual standings. But Mårtensson takes a longview.
'I always tell the team we need to look at this on a ten, twenty, thirty-year horizon. It's more about being consistent over time and building a brand that people can relate to. it's always going to help if we have our players and team performing well. But I'm sure we will over time.'
Beta Testing
In the gaming universe, user feedback loops are built into every update cycle. In LIV Golf, building a team's brand takes a different tack, and is often achieved via real time, face-to-face interaction with fans.
'The great thing about golf is that you actually meet and see fans,' Mårtensson said. 'We've done four or five Cleeks garden parties now at tournaments. We invite our fans to hang out close to a good location on the golf course where we can meet and talk to people and see what they think about the brand and what excites them. That is as close to beta testing as we get.'
The pairing of feedback and executive instinct doesn't just shape the brand, it also guides roster decisions.
Player Personnel
After former Cleeks player Kalle Samooja finished in the drop zone last season, (he was 49th in the individual standings) and got relegated, a personnel decision had to be made. Enter Florida State alum Frederik Kjettrup. The Dane made a splash on the PGA Tour Americas circuit last year, winning back-to-back events and notching a third title shortly after. But for Mårtensson and team captain Martin Kaymer, his resume wasn't the only deciding factor in choosing to add him to the Cleeks roster.
'If he wouldn't have matched with our personalities I don't think Freddie would play on our team, to be honest, so it's hugely important."
With the team's four players serving as the public face of the brand, Mårtensson understands that character carries an important weight, though naturally, 'the performance in golf is also high up there.'
When asked how he envisions the next five years playing out, Mårtensson comes back to achieving cultural relevance and hoisting trophies.
'If we see people running around in Cleeks hats and celebrities wearing our gear, that is success. Performance on the course is going to be hugely important so I hope we as a team have won a handful of tournaments, at least one of them being the team championship."
