I want 'My NHL': Conductor helps "re-launch" pro hockey with a five-spot media blitz

Post, Oct, 2005 by Ken McGorry

NEW YORK -- How do you re-launch a major pro sport that lost a season to history due to a strike? First, if you're talking hockey, all those fans didn't take up surfing over the past year--they're still there. But if you're the NHL, you want to make sure you're reaching out to those fans with a big, "we're back!" splash to kick off the season with the help of a major ad campaign conceived and produced by LA's Conductor (www.conductorla.com).

Last month the National Hockey League held a big re-launch media event at the Museum of Television and Radio in Manhattan. That night the industry was introduced to a new, more personalized, fan-driven NHL--along with a major positioning campaign including TV, radio, print, online, outdoor and the new place to find young adults: cinemas.

Ed Horne, president of NHL Enterprises (www.nhl.com), told the crowd that the league had used focus groups to get into hockey fans' heads and learned that "fans wanted to be closer to the game." He said that the NHL chose Conductor to create and produce the new campaign because the branding company is composed of "master storytellers" well suited to the task of reconnecting with hockey's fan base after a fallow season. And so Conductor, led by CEO Tim Tennant and president Tom Cotton, went after hockey fans with its five-spot production touting the league's new slogan: "My NHL."

Conductor's big budget TV/cinema production, Tennant says, involved nine Panavision cameras shooting 100,000 feet of 35mm and included up to 700 people, including extras and crew, as well as the finest in post and VFX talent. Rink action, including two battling hockey teams and numerous fans (to be replicated later in post), was shot in Chilliwack, B.C.

The first :30 installment, It's Time, debuted late in September prior to hockey's October 5 season opener. Directed and photographed by RSA's Sam Bayer, It's Time almost looks like a scene from Gladiator and stars a hunky hockey player (not an NHL player) who is "basically telegraphing the emotional inside of the 'warrior spirit' and that they can't really get on the ice and do what they do without the fans," Tennant says. "It's very fan-centric." The fans themselves--including a prominent young boy--appear at the spot's end in montage with the NHL logo and slogan.

Conductor's campaign is being edited at Skip Film by Skip Chaisson (310-315-7233) with visual effects by Santa Monica's Entity FX (www.entityfx.com). Many of the nine cameras came into play in shooting effects meant to bring game action into sharp focus, including high-speed filming of flying hockey pucks.

THE DREAM TEAM

The spots will also engender a longer, more ambitious piece, which will run about five minutes in length and is planned for theatrical distribution. The :30s, each customized for every city with an NHL team, will run through the fall and Christmas, Tennant says.

Tennant chooses only specialists for production and post--Bayer has won many awards; Entity has done effects for The Aviator and Spider-Man 2; VFX supervisor Michael Fink also supervised the X-Men films; Skip Film works on numerous major movies including producing title design and has about four Avid editors on "My NHL." Telecine took place primarily at Company 3 with Stefan Sonnenfeld in Santa Monica, with some additional telecine done at The New Post Group.

"We only use the stars of the industry to do our work," says Tennant.

"It's a combination of Gladiator, Hero, Rashomon, and all those classic films," says Conductor broadcast producer Bill Curran of the campaign's style. Conductor is a hybrid, Curran says, in that it works as both a production company and an agency, a full-service branding company providing marketing design and concept as well as R & D.

217 SPOTS & COUNTING

But how do you post five :30s and a long narrative piece all at once? "Because of air dates and other deadline considerations, we're jumping into the next spot right away while simultaneously beginning to edit the three-to-five-minute piece," Curran says. VFX must also be carefully planned--in addition to speed manipulation, Michael Fink designed CG, including ice effects, motion blur, CG pucks and crowd replication.

With 30 different NHL teams and two French-speaking cities to serve, "we're producing, at the very least, 217 spots," says Curran. They are also adding customized versions for display in the arenas and network versions for NBC.

"I believe that this campaign will establish a new level of commercial editing which other advertisers, especially sports-related sponsors, will want to incorporate into their own advertising," Curran says, "Skip Film has been able to capture the intense enthusiasm and excitement of the game of hockey with a quick-paced, highly graphic editing style and intense sound design."

Tennant wrote, created, packaged and presented the campaign, then produced it and delivered it. He sees no problem in hooking fans who went a year without pro hockey. "The fans are rabid to get back," Tennant adds.