Acknowledging that licenced merchandise is 100% an emotional purchase, we studied the emotional curve and the sales curve and discovered that they were identical! During playoff season, sales for licenced merchandise over index online. At the peak of emotions, when the team won, or better yet clinched, there was a short timeframe of euphoria that triggered purchases. And every minute after that victory were sales dollars left on the table. On the flip side if the team lost or was eliminated, every media dollar invested was a waste. We called it euphoria marketing!

We were the 1st Canadian retailer to build a custom script with Google and the NHL to automate ads delivery and optimization. We were able to program and trigger offers 48 hours prior to selected matches as well as recognizing teams’ victories to serve offers within seconds after the game ended.

We first leveraged the flexibility of digital OOH to display congratulations messages triggered only if a team clinched.

Next, social and display banners were triggered within seconds of a team’s victory. At the same time, search campaigns with tailored ad texts were also triggered following victories.

Then, a 2nd screen campaign ran with adapted display and social ads as well as TV spots during matches with offers only valid for the duration of a game.

All in all, a total of 40+ creatives were produced in advanced and pushed appropriately depending on the games’ outcome.

An astounding 200% lift in team sports gear was recorded year over year, on top of over 39,000,000 impressions and 15,000 social engagements generated.

By leveraging real-time triggers with timely messages and offers, Sport Chek became extremely relevant during winning moments throughout the playoff season.

More importantly, the success of this campaign will serve as a basis for Sport Chek’s future endeavors to connect with audience during these crucial Sports Moments.

It is an optimal combination of touch points and moments in time, building on hockey fans’ wide range of emotions as they follow their favourite team throughout the playoffs. We were able to build a go-to-market strategy that aligned perfectly with their mind set, maximizing impact of our message and driving consumer engagement which led to a 200% lift in sales of licenced merchandise. We engineered a campaign that was innovative in the way that it was 100% non-committed until triggered; reacting to real-time data to capitalize on Canadian sports euphoria by serving the right ads at the right moment.

We crafted two e-commerce exclusive offers to cater to this timely opportunity:

1- 20% discount valid only for the duration of NHL games.

2- 12-hour delivery for fans that wanted their gear in time for the next playoff game.

It was the combination of a product offer, a media strategy based on emotionally-driven purchases and a media plan that was 100% non-committed until triggered that made our campaign stand out.

The solution was to use a data feed to obtain game results in real-time, along with a set of rules, a creative for every outcome possible and a handful of media partners willing to play ball.

As our campaign was based on real-time triggers to deliver offers crafted for the right euphoria moment, another challenge was to choose the right media partners and work closely to maximize flexibility with non-committed media buys.

Sport Chek is the leading retailer of licenced merchandising in Canada. But with only a tiny budget to support licenced products during playoff season, the media strategy needed to be laser focused on the right time and place.

The challenge became: how do you architect the media presence if you don’t know which team will win? Therefore, how do you craft a campaign that is totally dependant on the outcome of a game, in real-time?