YOUTILITY

Why Smart Marketing Is About Help, Not Hype

The difference between helping and selling is just two letters. But those two letters are critically important to your company’s success.

You’re not competing for attention only against other, similar products. You’re competing for attention against everything. To win in this hyper-competitive environment, you must ask “How can we help?”

If you sell something, you make a customer today, but if you genuinely help someone, you create a customer for life. This is Youtility.

Includes interviews with dozens of companies practicing Youtility, and provides 6 blueprints for building Youtility in your company.

Available for pre-order soon (get up to 7 exclusive bonuses) at http://YoutilityBook.com
Digital Media 10  |  Add Yours

NHL Misses Net in New Campaign – Where’s Social Media?

The National Hockey League has rolled out a series of compelling TV spots featuring some of the game’s biggest stars.

And while the new commercials – with a theme of “Is This The Year?” will run nationally on Canadian broadcast and U.S. cable television, like so many campaigns, it’s being forced to go it alone.

How About Some Synergy?

Instead of launching an integrated effort, it appears that this is a TV-only exercise (created in-house by the NHL with creative consulting from Y&R).

- A search for “NHL” on Google finds no mention of the campaign in either paid or organic listing.

- The official NHL Facebook page doesn’t mention the campaign, and doesn’t link to the ads.

- The spots are not on YouTube (although they are on the NHL.com site).

- The ads are not specifically touted even on the Web sites of the featured players’ teams.

A Huge Social Media Opportunity

If there’s one sports league that could and should capitalize on social media marketing, it’s the NHL. It’s downright cultish, and very few people are ambivalent toward it. So many easy social media programs could be launched.

Contests to make your own “Is This The Year?” commercial. Contests to describe why this is indeed the year for your team. Guest blog posts from the players in the commercials. Uploading the spots to YouTube, including a “Making Of” video that shows how the innovative commercials were produced. Linking the spots from players’ Facebook pages.

And in the digital marketing realm, campaign elements might include: buying banner ads that include the commercials using rich media, video ads on Hulu.com and other sites, buying PPC ads that link to the spots, and having each team email links to the commercials to their season ticket holders.

The geo-targeted possibilities are enormous, because the NHL actually cut 2 local versions (featuring local stars) for every team in the league, and these spots will roll out soon after the national effort launches.

It’s amazing that the NHL would create what appears to be something like 70 TV commercials, and not back them up with anything in the digital marketing or social media marketing universe except for putting them on their own site.

Do you agree, or am I being too hard on the ice gang? Other examples of missed social media opportunities?

 

I’m on Twitter @jaybaer
Subscribe to Convince & Convert via email

 

pf button both NHL Misses Net in New Campaign Wheres Social Media?
About Jay Baer

Jay Baer is a hype-free social media and content strategist & speaker, and author of Youtility: Why Smart Marketing is About Help not Hype. Jay is the founder of http://convinceandconvert.com and host of the Social Pros podcast.

Join 21,000 of your peers

Receive "One Social Thing" our daily email with a single, important social media or content marketing topic. Plus, as a free gift, get our ebook on how to measure content marketing.

Genesis Theme Framework

Convince & Convert Runs on
the Genesis Framework

The Genesis Framework, which powers this site, offers a huge selection of amazing designs which can change the way your site looks. They are easy to customize and include layout options as well as custom widgets, so get Genesis now!

  • Pingback: NHL Misses Net in New Campaign - Where’s Social Media? | IntegratedMarketing

  • http://twitter.com/lisahempel/status/943361122 Lisa Hempel

    hockey+social media=goodness http://tinyurl.com/4tcg4o

  • Pingback: Quotes for the week ending 4 October, 2008 «

  • http://www.themultitasker.com/ Corby Fine

    Amazing, I am in Canada and have not yet seen these ads. As a hockey fan I did take note of the new NHL website launch about a week ago (http://www.themultitasker.com/2008/09/the-new-nhlcom/) though again, no direct integration with the campaign. I am not sure a Google PPC campaign makes sense, though ensuring SEO of the keywords should be critical. The launch of the new site including new URL structures could delay the indexing of the new content though…poor timing.

  • http://www.themultitasker.com Corby Fine

    Amazing, I am in Canada and have not yet seen these ads. As a hockey fan I did take note of the new NHL website launch about a week ago (http://www.themultitasker.com/2008/09/the-new-nhlcom/) though again, no direct integration with the campaign. I am not sure a Google PPC campaign makes sense, though ensuring SEO of the keywords should be critical. The launch of the new site including new URL structures could delay the indexing of the new content though…poor timing.

  • deirdrebeth

    The NHL has *always* missed the boat with its marketing, why should this year be any different.

    So far nothing beats “Do these pants make my butt look big?” and “Stupid HD” but even those I only saw during games.

  • deirdrebeth

    The NHL has *always* missed the boat with its marketing, why should this year be any different.

    So far nothing beats “Do these pants make my butt look big?” and “Stupid HD” but even those I only saw during games.

  • JH

    I dont think Marketing a sports league is not as simple as changing the rules and spending money. Sometimes it is things that happens within a league organically that will get people intrigued. Competition, storylines, personalities, etc. My thoughts: http://jib-sports-culture.blogspot.com/2008/11/marketing-sports-league.html

  • JH

    I dont think Marketing a sports league is not as simple as changing the rules and spending money. Sometimes it is things that happens within a league organically that will get people intrigued. Competition, storylines, personalities, etc. My thoughts: http://jib-sports-culture.blogspot.com/2008/11/marketing-sports-league.html

  • letstalkandchat

    I just found a great company that builds websites for info products. To keep your costs low, they’ll mentor you on how to create your site, design a marketing funnel (one of the guys works in Hollywood and makes really slick videos), and the other guy programmed Myspace. If you’re looking to have professional web design for your small business and not waste any time or money then check their site out. Check them out: http://www.mikelmurphy.com/easy-info-product-site-system/