NHL Exec VP & CMO Heidi Browning late last year brought the league's digital media buying in-house in an effort to better use its content to "find segments of casual observers, convert them into documented fans and use the corresponding data to find more of them," according to Tim Peterson of DIGIDAY. An NHL spokesperson said that the league will "continue to work with outside agencies and productions studios on creative." The NHL is "especially interested in appealing to younger fans, specifically millennials and members of Generation Z." Browning said that audience segment "explains why the league spends a lot of its ad dollars on social platforms." Social platforms "generally offer sophisticated self-serve ad-buying tools that can be used with minimal spend." That flexibility has "fueled the rise of many direct-to-consumer marketers, and the NHL saw an opportunity to take advantage of that agility to establish more direct relationships of its own with fans." The NHL has been building out what Browning described as its "fan engagement platform," which will allow the league to "use the data that it is able to collect from people who sign up for its newsletters and contests." Understanding its fans is "particularly important for the NHL" right now because the league’s content is "having a bit of a moment." TV and digital viewership of NHL games has "grown compared to last year." To seize that opportunity, the NHL has been "trying to raise the profile of not only the game but its players." To coincide with the start of the latest regular season, in October the league "premiered two original series featuring its players off the ice" (DIGIDAY.com, 4/4).
