Lightning VP/Marketing Eric Blankenship is part of the team that has "inspired viral social media campaigns" for the team's brand, like #BeTheThunder and "playful slogans for new T-shirt designs" like "Bish Please" for G Ben Bishop and "Stammer Time" for C Steven Stamkos, according to Justine Griffin of the TAMPA BAY TIMES. Blankenship said the team has been "active with social media for a number of years," but sometimes there is a "fine line to walk when we mix real content like game recaps and scores with marketing messaging, like promoting new merchandise in our retail stores." He said, "At the end of the day the goal is to use social media to provide information that the fans want, and give them extra information about the team that they may not know they want yet. For example, we usually post photos of new Bolts merchandise on social media first to give our fans an exclusive preview and taste for what's coming." He added the hashtag #BeTheThunder is a tagline the club has been "using for four seasons now, but it continues to grow." Blankenship: "So many people are jumping on the Lightning bandwagon now, and I mean that in the best way possible, so they're excited to use it and join the conversation." He noted just as the regular season ended the Lightning "released a line of new T-shirts," and said, "From an organizational standpoint, we put a lot of emphasis on retail merchandise and are always trying to expand our offerings. We wanted to come up with something new that spoke to a younger audience -- basically the millennials. That's where the shirts like "Bish, Please," 'Johnny B. Good,' 'How Swede it is,' and 'Stammer Time' came from." Blankenship said of the new merchandise, "They're blowing off the shelves. 'Bish Please' is definitely the most popular. What's great is we're seeing fans of all ages buying them. Just this week we saw on Twitter that the Anaheim Ducks launched a similar T-shirt line. It's great to see our marketing work and inspire others" (TAMPABAY.com, 5/28).
