Penguins Build Buzz With New "Defy Ordinary" Viral Ad Campaign

By Jessica Collins, Staff Writer

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As a way to build excitement and promote the ’09-10 NHL season, the Penguins have launched a two-minute viral ad initiative titled “Defy Ordinary.” The team is not doing a large marketing effort following their Stanley Cup-winning season last year, instead choosing to create this in-house campaign to create buzz. The video is a montage of Penguins fans celebrating during games, college students working in classrooms, clips from the team’s ’08-09 championship season and various photos of Pittsburgh residents at various local landmarks. Penguins VP/Marketing James Santilli said the video attracted 20,000 views within the first 12 hours after the campaign was launched. He said the team started a brand study about a year and a half ago with help from an outside firm to “learn what our fans think about our team and who are target fan base is.” Santilli: “We found that our core fan base is young. They’re 21-39, with the heart of that being 25-34. They’re young, energetic, used to technology and living life on the go.” Santilli noted the team’s ultimate goal with the campaign is to tie the Penguins to the city and to the people of Pittsburgh. “The campaign is viral for a number of reasons. Our fans are very tech-savvy, as with most NHL fans, so we have extensive use of social media,” said Santilli. The Pens beginning with Friday’s game against the Rangers will start running 30-second clips of the video at Mellon Arena during games and on FSN Pittsburgh during telecasts.

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