Take me out to the Hawks game...
The National Hockey League, with its renewed marketing prowess, put on a fine show yesterday at the 2009 NHL Winter Classic.
The league's second-annual outdoor hockey game took place at Wrigley Field, home of Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs, and featured the latest match-up in the long-standing rivalry between the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings. The crowd most certainly was more representative of both teams' existing fan bases than of new hockey fans or fans of other teams, but by design, the league took center stage.
Events like the Winter Classic are integral elements in the NHL's new marketing strategy to push hockey fans beyond their tribal mentality and to drive interest in the league as a whole. It seems that the league accomplished its goals yesterday, as Blackhawks fans-- though understandably gloomy following their team's loss-- were cheered by the overall uniqueness of this hockey experience.
And if the action on the ice situated in Wrigley Field's shallow center wasn't novel enough to hold the boisterous crowd's attention, the marketing extras sure were.
Anyone familiar with Wrigley Field knows that sponsors' signage long had been restricted to the concourses and the famous rooftops surrounding the park. Recently, the team consented to adding a few sponsors' logos on the famous ivy-covered walls, but brands and logos still are scarce in the historic ballpark.
Yesterday, though, while an ice rink and a thin layer of snow covered all but the field's pitcher's mound, the place was transformed. Logos for sponsors including Reebok, Bridgestone, Bud Light, Verizon, XM and McDonald's encircled the rink's boards in normal hockey fashion, ran along a false wall of ivy-imprinted banners that stood in front of the actual brick of the home run fence, and popped up on digital boards here and there throughout the park. [Even Miller Light changed its billboard (situated across the street from the park but visible from the stands) for the occasion to "T-T-Tastes G-G-Great."]
Of course, the NHL also scored on the marketing front with heavy news coverage leading up to and through the game, as the very existence of this event is a powerful PR tactic.
Happy New Year, indeed.
