During the recent NHL Draft, teams across the league leveraged their digital platforms to explore innovative ways of engaging their fans. To build anticipation, teams utilized creative posts emphasizing the draft's impact and generating excitement among their fanbase about the prospect of new players joining their "family."
Teams with early-round picks, such as the New Jersey Devils, holding the first overall pick, employed digital strategies with entertaining videos and creative posts in anticipation of the significant event.
For some teams, the recent NHL Draft presented a unique challenge. Take the Pittsburgh Penguins, for instance, who hadn't had a first-round pick since 2014. Recognizing the importance of building fan excitement over the prospect of adding high-value players in the draft, the Penguins, known for their consistent innovation across digital channels, strategically utilized their mobile app.
This was evident in their Draft Preview, where the Penguins not only highlighted the impact of a first-round talent but also provided an exclusive behind-the-scenes look. The content included insights into their scouting meetings, links to their podcast featuring the director of amateur scouting, and additional information related to NHL rankings. This approach allowed Penguins fans to gain an insider's perspective into the team's potential draftee.
"This year’s draft presented us with an interesting opportunity for content. Prior to this year, the Penguins didn’t have a first round pick for almost five years. We were faced with the challenge of capturing our fans attention while also getting them excited about the future of the team.
Our main priority was to give fans valuable content in a digestible way. With the preview, we wanted to fill it with crucial information while also emphasizing the hype surrounding the upcoming draft."
Jamie Louden
Penguins’ Manager of Digital Marketing
For some teams, promoting the big event extended beyond the draft picks. The Vancouver Canucks, in particular, faced a unique circumstance as the event's host, making the need for relevant and engaging content even more crucial. Acknowledging this, the Canucks took an innovative approach by initiating draft promotions earlier and with added diversity compared to their counterparts.
On the mobile front, the Canucks crafted an entertaining combine experience. This interactive content showcased the pre-draft journey of prospective players, offering fans a glimpse into the preparations leading up to their significant day in Vancouver.
What was great about this mobile campaign, was that it gave fans a chance to put themselves in the prospects shoes (skates?) by learning about the specific tests and endurances. The Canucks also included the top 2019 performer in each category, enabling fans to see just how athletic those prospects really are and to learn more about them ahead of the Draft.
“With the draft in Vancouver this year, we saw an opportunity to connect not only with our local fans, but also tell our story to the wider NHL audience.
The NHL Draft combine was a cool opportunity to highlight the top names, but also familiarize our fans with some of the players deeper in the draft. Our hope was that it would help fans build a connection with picks and generate more interest in the event itself, all the while depicting how hard the training actually is. The design and experience came out great and we were really happy with the results.”
Kevin Kinghorn
Canucks’ VP of Marketing
The Combine content, however, was only the beginning of the great work that the Canucks did.
With the unique ability to also select fans to attend the local Draft, the team was also able to get their fans excited through Draft ticket contests.
Specifically on mobile, the team created two engaging quizzes that once fans successfully completed, would enter them to win Draft tickets.
With the announcement of Elias Petterson winning the Calder Trophy mere days before the Draft, the Canucks built a quiz highlighting this momentous occasion. The quiz highlighted not only their player and his accolades, but also focused on the impact that a first round talent can have for their team.
The other quiz was designed to test fans’ knowledge of previous draft picks. The engaging quiz walked fans through a variety of questions including (but not limited to) which league has had the most Canucks’ draft picks, and focused on a variety of top former first round picks.
“The mobile quizzes and questions were a lot of fun, and we were delighted by how well they performed and how well the fans engaged with them! In fact, 30% of the fans who opened the quiz, completed the form for a chance to win tickets to the draft.
We definitely want to thank the Rover team for helping us execute these campaigns — from helping us brainstorm, design and launch them, it was great working with the team and we can’t wait to see what we do together next!”
Konrad Kowalski
Canucks’ Mobile Product Specialist
The San Jose Sharks and the Penguins did a great job creating engaging mobile recaps that perfectly summarize their 2019 Draft Class.
In their Draft Recap, the Sharks created an engaging activation that perfectly recapped each of their picks. While the landing screen provided a quick summary of the players by clicking on any of the draftees opened a new screen. This provided each fan with additional information about the prospect, including his past stats, bio, as well as a variety of great photos and video of the player.
The Penguins Draft Recap was a similar mobile experience, but it also included additional information on their 2019 Prospect Development Camp. This additional information, provided their fans the opportunity to follow along with the newest Penguins prospects as they started their journey in Pittsburgh.
The Penguins also took their delivery one step further by utilizing their push notification system as well as home page app placement to reach over a million users. The draft recap push notification ranked among the top in click through for all news-related pushes this year.
“From our preview to our recap, we were very happy with how our draft content turned out on mobile. Our fans enjoyed that our recap included interviews with the draft picks at the podium, fun facts about each player, and stories from our team writers. Using the Rover platform (and some help from their amazing team!) we were able to capture fan attention and ramp up excitement for the future of the Pittsburgh Penguins!"
Jamie Louden
Penguins’ Manager of Digital Marketing