Last season, National Hockey League (NHL) teams around the league created innovative partnership campaigns centered on the fan experience. But no digital platform saw more growth and innovation than a team’s mobile app. One of the most effective examples of a team’s execution of these mobile partnership activations were the fan experiences implemented by the Vancouver Canucks.
The Canucks turned to Rover to develop a variety of native mobile campaigns within their FanReach app. These campaigns not only engaged fans across British Columbia and around the world, but also seamlessly incorporated their partners. Each campaign also focused on gathering valuable and personalized data, which was crucial for both the Canucks and their sponsors.
“This past season, the Rover platform continued to help elevate our fan engagement and partnerships on mobile. We were really happy with the partnership campaigns that our team launched, and how seamless these experiences layered into our FanReach mobile app CMS. Rover’s ability to provide us with a blank slate to design and build anything we needed was a game changer. On top of that, the platform helped us collect valuable data, which was a big win for our team and partners. Overall, each campaign found tremendous success and we’re really happy knowing that our fans enjoyed them as much as our partners did.”
Hannah Wilkinson
Vancouver Canucks’ Senior Manager of Brand & Digital
Vancouver Canucks’ Save on Foods Scratch Off Mobile Campaign
The Canucks have launched many successful mobile app campaigns, and one great example is their Scratch & Save experience, presented by local grocer Save On Foods. The team cleverly designed a mobile campaign that effectively showcased both the team and the sponsor's brands. To gather data, the campaign started by asking fans which city they were in. After selecting a city, fans were then prompted to choose their local Save on Foods store.
The best part, however, was that once a fan chose their local store, they were presented with a scratch-off offer, which revealed an exclusive coupon just for them. They were then able to click on “Save my Offer” to save the $5 coupon to their phone. Additionally, at the end of the campaign, the Canucks included a form for fans to fill out to win a signed Canucks jersey.
This ability to provide a fan with exclusive opportunities while receiving valuable data and positive brand recognition was a win-win for both team and partner.
Vancouver Canucks Skip the Dishes Check-in To Win Mobile Campaign
Another example of a successful mobile campaign was the Canucks’ Check-in To Win experience, presented by Skip the Dishes, where fans could win exclusive Skip gift cards and Canucks tickets, just by participating. What really made this campaign successful was its tactful UI. The branding on the campaign perfectly encapsulated the brands of both the Canucks and Skip the Dishes, demonstrated by the representative Skip the Dishes car that drove across the screen as fans completed the activation. The questions included in this campaign were also driven towards data, as it asked fans which Canuck would score the first goal as well as tasked fans to choose their favorite pre-game snack. The campaign concluded with a data entry form that fans could fill out to win exclusive prizes.
“Our Skip the Dishes Check-in To Win Campaign ended up being one of our most successful campaigns of the season.
In fact, over 80% of fans who launched the experience, completed it. That shows us that fans are enjoying our content, and we truly couldn’t have done it without Rover.”
Hannah Wilkinson
Vancouver Canucks’ Senior Manager of Brand & Digital
Canucks Electrify Fans with Toyota Electrify Trivia
Without a doubt, trivia has become one of the most popular and successful mobile campaigns for sports teams. On top of being a highly engaging piece of content, this new piece of partnership inventory provides an incredible opportunity for logo placement and brand design on multiple screens.
The Canucks took their Toyota Electrify campaign one step further by creating trivia questions that highlighted the team and partner’s visual brands, while enhancing fans’ knowledge of both the Canucks and of Toyota’s fleet of electric vehicles. This was best exemplified in the included copy. A great example of this can be seen in the first question where there is an easy parallel between the two brands, it reads: Toyota has sold over 15 million electrified vehicles worldwide. Which Vancouver Canucks player is playing in his 15th season?
Conclusion
It is undeniable that the Vancouver Canucks have found tremendous mobile success, with the Rover experiences within the Canucks’ app generating over half a million screen views last season alone. Through utilizing the Rover platform to create fan engagement experiences that captivated fans and engaged team’s biggest partners, it’s clear that the Canucks have an incredible understanding of how to engage fans on mobile.
Their success was achieved as the team not only created unique and engaging campaigns, but also found innovative ways to launch them. While each campaign was individually sent out over push notifications and app content cards, the team also included them in game previews and gameday hubs built using the Rover platform.
For instance, their Game Preview contained useful information about the upcoming game, while including deeplinks to interactive fan engagement opportunities such as jackpot information, predict the play activities, pre-game videos and a variety of other sponsored activations. Through creating these hubs, the team was able to ensure that the most pertinent information was easily found in one place, enhancing the fan experience and increasing viewership and engagement on their most important partnership pieces.
“We can’t thank the Rover team enough for helping us create and launch these activations. We are incredibly proud of our ability to take advantage of our mobile app to engage our biggest fans and our biggest partners.
We’re looking forward to seeing what we will accomplish next season on mobile.”
Hannah Wilkinson
Vancouver Canucks’ Senior Manager of Brand & Digital