To get its banking client in on the Stanley Cup playoffs action, Toronto’s Bensimon Byrne has come up with a goofy campaign that’s pretty much guaranteed to pay off engagement-wise for Scotiabank.
Declaring that it’s time for hockey fans to set aside individual team loyalties and get behind the last Canadian team that’s actually got a shot at ultimate victory, Scotiabank launched a microsite at dawn yesterday morning. Its mission? To get as many Canadians as possible to literally pledge their support for the Ottawa Senators. First to electronically scrawl their John Henrys were the mayors of Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto.
Everyone who signs the pledge online gets a chance to win two tickets to game six in Ottawa (plus accommodation, travel and spending money) – assuming there is a game six, with Ottawa already down two games to none in the finals.
But the initiative burst its Internet boundaries later yesterday, at least in Toronto. Wearing Senators jerseys and T-shirts co-branded with the words ‘Go Sens Go! Scotiabank,’ street teams handed out 50,000 ‘Scotia Pledges’ to folks in the vicinity of Union Station and the intersection of Yonge and Bloor.
The pledge reads in part: ‘I hereby dedicate my hockey-loving soul to (the Senators) to bring the glory home to the place where hockey was born, where the game was perfected, where its spirit runs deepest, and where the world’s greatest trophy belongs.’
Promo activities were handled by Bensimon Byrne subsidiaries Dynamo Living Media, Narrative Advocacy Media and Mighty Digital Media.
In another bow to hockey madness yesterday, Scotiabank also announced its sponsorship of CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada‘s pre-game shows during the Stanley Cup finals.
