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Black People Golf Brand Strategy & Identity
Opening Fairways. Expanding Networks.
Brand Strategy · Naming · Brand Architecture · Brand Identity
Sponsored by Johnson Capital Planning, Nashville’s leading Black-owned financial services firm, Black People Golf (BPG) is a culture-forward initiative built on one core belief: golf should be as inclusive, inspiring, and accessible as the people who play it.
Dedicated to expanding access, representation, and opportunity through the game, Channing & Company founder Channing Bailey was brought in to create a brand capable of matching that ambition—bold enough to shift perception, clear enough to build trust, and meaningful enough to grow with the community.
Working closely on strategy with the Johnson Capital team and Bri Hawkins of Demi Rebel, Channing & Company developed Black People Golf as both a community initiative and lead-generation platform, extending Johnson Capital beyond traditional financial-services marketing through shared interest, experience, and relationship-building.
Channing & Company co-developed the name, established the endorsed-brand architecture, and designed the brand identity, turning golf into a new point of connection between community and business. For Black People Golf, it creates a distinct cultural identity around access, community, and opportunity. For Johnson Capital, the initiative creates a platform for relationship-building, financial engagement, and new client pathways.
Johnson Capital Planning commissioned Channing & Company to create Black People Golf as a community and lead-generation platform, using golf to open new pathways for relationship-building, financial engagement and client connection.
Brand Strategy: Expanding Access. Creating Opportunity.
Golf has long created access to relationships, networks, and opportunities beyond the course. Black People Golf creates a culture-forward community platform for connection, financial education, wellness, personal growth, and the game itself. Rooted in representation and access, the strategy was designed to help members build relationships, gain knowledge, and expand pathways to social and economic opportunity.
Brand Strategy & Naming: Saying Exactly What It Is
The strategy called for a brand that could speak directly to the community it was designed to serve. Black People Golf was deliberately named without abstraction. The name identifies the people, the activity, and the opportunity in three words, giving the initiative an immediate cultural position and a clear point of entry.
That directness supports the larger brand strategy. Black People Golf is not framed as a financial-services program disguised as a lifestyle brand. It leads with a shared interest and community first, creating space for relationships, financial engagement, wellness, and professional connection to follow.
The identity carries the same clarity through a bold stacked wordmark:
BLACK
PEOPLE
GOLF
Its weight and compact composition turn the name into a visual statement. The custom B monogram provides an ownable shorthand; the wordmark makes the proposition unmistakable.
The name says who it is for. The identity makes that presence visible.
Black People Golf Brand Identity
Led by @ChanningBailey, @ChanningandCo
developed a minimal, symbolically rich identity built around a custom B monogram and stacked wordmark. Anchored by a hand-crafted monogram “B”, the negative space reveals a golfer mid-swing—capturing the elegance of the game and a bold, assertive presence in a historically exclusive sport.
Paired with the stacked wordmark, the system balances symbolic recognition with complete clarity. A striking, meaningful, and versatile brand identity that communicates exactly what it needs to—BLACK PEOPLE GOLF.
The custom monogram and stacked wordmark create two complementary forms of recognition: one symbolic, one explicit. Together they give Black People Golf a contemporary sports and cultural presence designed to work across communications, programming, partnerships, and the game itself.
The visual identity translates the strategy into a direct visual proposition: Black people belong within the game.
Brand Architecture: A Brand Within the Brand
Black People Golf needed enough independence to build its own audience and cultural equity without losing its relationship to Johnson Capital Planning. Channing & Company created an endorsed-brand architecture:
BLACK PEOPLE GOLF
Powered by Johnson Capital Planning
Black People Golf leads in scale and visual presence, while Powered by Johnson Capital Planning establishes the organization behind it without competing with the primary identity.
The structure allows the initiative to develop recognition and meaning of its own while creating a clear pathway back to the parent business. Rather than beginning with a financial-services proposition, Johnson Capital can enter the relationship through shared interests, experiences, and community.
The lockup turns the brand architecture into a visible system: an independent community brand with a clear relationship to the parent company. Channing Bailey translated the physical language of golf into an identity connecting the player, the name, and the business strategy in one system.
Community Strategy: Building the Network
Golf already creates the conditions Johnson Capital wanted to build around: time, conversation, relationships, and access to professional networks.
Black People Golf was structured around four connected pillars: Network & Community, Financial Development & Education, Mental Wellness & Health, and Playing & Learning Golf.
The platform was designed to meet people at different points in the game, from novice golfers learning the fundamentals to experienced players refining their skills and seasoned golfers able to connect, participate, and teach.
That range turns golf into common ground. Clinics, networking experiences, financial education, and community programming create opportunities for knowledge and relationships to move across experience levels and generations.
The game brings people together. The community creates what happens next.
Beyond Traditional Financial Marketing: A New Path to Client Relationships
For Johnson Capital Planning, the platform also created a new way to build client relationships beyond traditional financial-services marketing: community first, financial engagement built through relationships.
Black People Golf provides a platform for golf education, professional networking, financial development, wellness, and community experience. The brand has extended into programming such as Drive Your Finances Forward, bringing golf, fellowship, and financial planning into the same environment.
For Johnson Capital, it creates another pathway into client relationships. For the community, it opens the game and the network around it.
Opening fairways. Expanding networks.
Led by Channing Bailey, Channing & Company translated Johnson Capital's business objective into an independent community brand with a clear pathway back to the parent company. A community and lead-generation platform, using golf to open new pathways for relationship-building, financial engagement and client connection.
About Black People Golf
Black People Golf is a community and lead-generation brand developed for Johnson Capital Planning to create new pathways for relationship-building and client engagement through golf. Led by Channing Bailey, Channing & Company developed the strategic concept, co-developed the name, created the endorsed-brand architecture and designed the brand identity and custom B monogram, collaborating with Bri Hawkins of Demi Rebel on brand strategy. The platform connects golf education, professional networking, financial development, wellness and community within one Johnson Capital-endorsed brand.
Build Beyond Traditional Marketing
A brand can create a new pathway into your business.
Channing & Company develops brand strategy, architecture and identity systems that help companies reach new audiences, build stronger relationships and turn shared interests into platforms for growth.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Led by Channing Bailey, Channing & Company developed the strategic concept, endorsed-brand architecture, naming and brand identity for Black People Golf, a community and lead-generation platform created for Johnson Capital Planning. Channing & Company collaborated with Bri Hawkins of Demi Rebel on the broader brand strategy and with Johnson Capital Planning’s internal team on naming and strategic development.
The engagement connected business strategy and design: creating a distinct community-facing brand while maintaining a clear relationship to Johnson Capital Planning.
Yes. Channing & Company develops sub-brands, endorsed brands, community platforms and branded initiatives for organizations that need to reach new audiences, enter new markets or create a different pathway into the parent business.
For Black People Golf, Channing & Company created an independent community-facing brand that could build its own recognition and cultural equity while remaining visibly endorsed by Johnson Capital Planning.
Brand architecture defines how a company, its brands, products, programs and initiatives relate to one another. It becomes especially important when an organization launches a new brand, enters another market, expands its portfolio or needs to decide how prominently the parent company should appear.
Black People Golf uses an endorsed-brand architecture: Black People Golf leads with its own name and identity, while “Powered by Johnson Capital Planning” maintains a strategic connection to the parent brand.
Yes. Brand strategy can create reasons for people to engage with a business before they are ready for a traditional product or sales conversation.
Black People Golf was intentionally developed as both a community initiative and a lead-generation platform. Golf became a shared-interest entry point through which Johnson Capital Planning could build relationships, create financial-engagement opportunities and connect with prospective and existing clients outside conventional financial-services marketing.
Channing & Company helps businesses identify similar opportunities where brand, community, content, partnerships or experiences can support broader growth objectives.
Yes. These disciplines can be developed as one connected brand strategy and identity engagement when the business challenge requires them.
Channing & Company can help define what a brand stands for, who it serves, how it is positioned, what it should be called, how it relates to other brands in the portfolio and how that strategy becomes a distinctive visual identity.
For Black People Golf, naming, strategic positioning, architecture and identity were developed as parts of the same brand system rather than isolated deliverables.
Scope depends on the business and the role the identity needs to play. Brand identity engagements may include logo and symbol design, wordmarks, typography, color systems, brand architecture lockups, visual direction, identity guidelines and applications across digital, print, experiential or marketing touchpoints.
The Black People Golf identity centers on a custom B monogram that uses negative space to reveal the form and movement of a golfer, paired with a direct stacked wordmark and Johnson Capital Planning endorsement.
Yes. Channing & Company can lead an engagement while collaborating with internal executives, marketing teams, strategists, agencies and specialist partners.
Black People Golf was developed collaboratively: Channing & Company led the strategic concept, brand architecture, naming development and identity design; Bri Hawkins of Demi Rebel collaborated on brand strategy; and Johnson Capital Planning participated in strategy and naming development.
The goal is a connected brand system regardless of how many stakeholders contribute to the work.
Investment depends on the scope of the engagement, the complexity of the business, the number of stakeholders, whether naming or brand architecture is required, and the breadth of the final identity system.
Channing & Company develops the recommended scope and investment after understanding the business objective, audience, existing brand infrastructure and what the new brand needs to accomplish.
Timelines vary based on scope, decision-making requirements and the number of strategic and creative components involved. A focused identity engagement will have different requirements from a project involving research, positioning, naming, brand architecture and a complete identity system.
Channing & Company establishes the project schedule during scoping so strategy, stakeholder reviews and design development are built into the process from the beginning.
Channing & Company develops the recommended scope and investment after understanding the business objective, audience, existing brand infrastructure and what the new brand needs to accomplish.
Black People Golf successfully established a distinct, culturally resonant community brand that expanded Johnson Capital Planning’s ability to engage new audiences outside traditional financial-services channels. The brand created a shared-interest platform that supported relationship-building, increased visibility within a targeted community, and introduced new pathways for long-term client engagement through events, education, and community participation.
The project demonstrates how strategic brand development can function as both a cultural platform and a business development engine, aligning brand identity with measurable engagement opportunities.
Start by sharing the business objective, audience, current challenge, desired scope, timeline and budget.
Channing & Company will use that information to determine the appropriate combination of brand strategy, positioning, naming, architecture, identity design and creative direction for the engagement.