NHL Signs Agency to Boost Brand

Departing from standard practice, the National Hockey League has hired an entertainment marketing agency to help restore the brand’s image and build a stronger emotional fan-player connection following a 301-day lockout during the 2004-05 season.

Conductor, a Los Angeles, CA-based agency, will serve as the NHL’s lead marketing communications and integration agency to help unite fans and players for the new season.

“As we come out of lockout to a new era for the league, we recognize in addition to having the product on the ice as strong as possible, we also need to come back in a big, a bold and an innovative way,” NHL Enterprises President Ed Horne, said last week. “We believe Conductor can help us do that.”

Starting the third week of September, Conductor will launch a campaign using an entertainment-based cinematic approach to reveal the brand’s true identity. The agency will help the NHL engage fans by using screenwriting and character development discipline as the main creative tool to drive the campaign.

Neither the NHL, nor Conductor, would release campaign details, but Tom Cotton, Conductor’s president and creative leader, said the “[The NHL] is going to come back with a style and a vengeance. We’re going to get [consumers] inside the soul of the game.”

Cotton likened Conductor’s work with the NHL to a promotion the agency concluded last week for the Axe brand. In that campaign, two men, Evan and Gareth, went on a cross-country road trip to boost the body spray and deodorant maker. At each stop, the two keep on online journal with photos of their experiences at Evanandgareth.com.

Conductor’s work with the NHL will engage fans and potential fans in a similar manner using “a storytelling approach,” Cotton said.

“It’s no longer enough to use the same old tools,” he said. “We’re going to reach hardcore fans in the U.S. and Canada…and have them say, “Wow.”

Los Angeles-based Rogers & Cowan will handle the NHL’s entertainment p.r, which will integrate the league and its players into relevant films and TVshows as part of the campaign.

“We need to be out touching consumers in places and venues where they are, and show them hockey is as relevant as any other opportunity there might be,” Horne said. “This campaign will deliver.”

The campaign will run throughout the 2005-06 season. TV spots, print ads and outdoors ads will support.