The Arizona Coyotes are introducing a marketing campaign designed to reassure a community that it will be around for a while.
The team has been in the Phoenix area for 19 seasons, but it’s been a rocky tenure that has included bankruptcy and league ownership. With new ownership now entering its third year, the Coyotes, who switched from “Phoenix” to “Arizona” last summer, want to assure area fans that they’re here to stay.
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A new marketing campaign assures fans that the Coyotes are stable and a team on the rise.
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“We have perceptions to change,” acknowledged John Pierce, the former U.S. Olympic Committee managing director for marketing and productions, who has been the Coyotes’ CMO for a year. “In this market, given our history, we need to remind people we’re here, we’re legitimate, we’re stable, we’re not going anywhere and that we are a team on the rise.”
The team hired Sterling Brands, San Francisco, to research what it meant to be a Coyotes fan, interviewing team staffers, sponsors and holding focus groups with fans and season-ticket holders — all aimed at synthesizing the team’s brand equity.
Agency 160over90 won the creative assignment responding with an outdoor, digital, broadcast, theatrical and social campaign that unapologetically celebrates hockey in the Valley of the Sun, calling the team and its fans, “A pack apart.” It’s the agency’s first hockey campaign.
“We’re no longer apologizing for the past, because it’s time to move on,” said Pierce, adding that boosting brand perception and awareness are paramount objectives. “This [Phoenix] is a transplant city, so awareness is a constant effort.”
Hoping to convert young fans, the team is offering a kid-sized Coyotes jersey in exchange for every opposing team jersey exchanged by an adult.
