Junior hockey club makes king sized move
The Edmonton Oil Kings won’t play their first hockey game until this fall, but the new Western Hockey League franchise is already running a massive integrated marketing and branding campaign.
The campaign, which launches this week, includes the club’s major season ticket campaign plus a multi-level branding campaign designed to alert Edmontonians to the team’s arrival on the city’s sports scene. The Oil Kings are named for a club that played in Edmonton in the 1950s and 60s.
The ticket campaign includes a new website at oilkings.ca, outdoor, radio and web banner ads, and a redesign of the team’s office, which will soon sport a massive “king size” hockey puck on its roof.
Both the ticket and branding campaign are built around the king size theme.
On the branding side, the Oil Kings will soon unveil a mascot, as well as a video and banners at the Rexall Centre, which will be shared next season by the Oil Kings and the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers.
The campaign is the work of Edmonton’s Red Communications, which is involved in every aspect of the launch, from designing a mascot to traditional advertising to selecting music and movie clips that will play on the scoreboard during Oil Kings’ games. “This is a really great example of a totally integrated marketing campaign,” says Red account director Kristy MacMillan. “We’re not just selling seats, we’re launching a hockey club.”
By Norma Ramage
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