Pfizer's Advil brand has signed on as an Official Partner of the NHL in North America for the '13-14 season. Advil also is an Official Partner and the Official Pain Reliever of the '14 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic and the '14 Coors Light NHL Stadium Series. Advil will receive significant media exposure, including camera-visible dasherboards and placement at accompanying fan festivals at NHL tent-pole events (NHL). SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL's Christopher Botta reports Advil's deal with the NHL is "a one-year agreement," and is Advil's "first direct affiliation with a sports league in many years." Pfizer Consumer Healthcare CMO Brian Groves said that Advil will use NHLers "in hockey-specific campaigns." Groves: "We're signing up players -- guys who are using Advil each and every day -- and will do some fun and creative promotion with them." Botta notes the deal was "inspired in part by a courageous shift" by Bruins C Gregory Campbell during the '12-13 Stanley Cup Playoffs. In Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals, Campbell "slid across the ice to block a shot." Despite being "in immense pain -- he was diagnosed after the game with a broken leg -- Campbell stayed on the ice to help his team" kill a Penguins power play. Groves was "watching from a suite at TD Garden" that night. He said, "Campbell stayed on the ice in excruciating pain so he could help his team. It resonated with us. We started thinking that pain relief, fast recovery and being there for others made the NHL a great fit for the Advil brand" (SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.com, 10/1).
