I Want My NHL: League Set With New Series Of TV Ads

The NHL is set to unveil tonight in N.Y. its “My NHL” ad campaign, via Conductor, that has as its “central focus an episodic series of cinematically produced TV commercials that follow a hockey ‘warrior,’” according to Richard Sandomir of the N.Y. TIMES. The five 30-second spots, “only one of which is finished, are filled with dramatic music, tight close-ups, flashbacks, low angles of ice action, special effects and quotations from the book ‘The Art of War’ by the Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu.” The ads are “designed to unfold as cliffhangers, one chapter leading into the next.” The spots “will be repackaged into be a five-minute minimovie that can run as extended commercials in movie theaters and possibly at sponsors’ retail locations.” The spots will run nationally and locally, and can be “customized with the star warrior in different uniforms.” Conductor President Thomas Cotton said, “We’d never worked on a brand that had been pulled off the shelf for a year, and was this big.” Sandomir writes Conductor’s approach is to “reintroduce the NHL similar to the way the agency devises appeals to maximize the opening weekend for new films.” Conductor has worked on releases such as “The Hulk” and “Spider-Man” (N.Y. TIMES, 9/21).