NHL/NBC Sports Willy Wonka Style Chocolate ‘Bracket Bar’ Playoff Promotion

The NHL and its official broadcasters NBC Sports have allied on a campaign that blends banded chocolate bars with a Willy Wonka style competition to build awareness around the 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs.

This initiative is a strand within the umbrella ‘Every Game. Every Night. Don’t Miss a Moment’ campaign

The promotion is built on no less than 32,768 bars of ‘Lord Stanley’s Cup Diddly-Umptious Bracket Chocolate’ – that is one for every single possible outcome of the 16-team NHL playoff tournament.

The bars, which have been produced by confectioner Chocomize (from Long Island City, New York), all have an individual imprint of a blank bracket (with an image of the Stanley Cup in the middle) and every one comes in a unique wrapper with one of the thousands of possible bracket combinations.

Whoever has the bar that shows the perfect bracket after the NHL champion is finally crowned in June is the lucky winner of a VIP trip to next year’s 2016 NHL All-Star Weekend in Nashville, Tennessee (and gets to spend some personal time with the iconic Stanley Cup trophy).

Furthermore, four lucky fans will also find that their bars contain a silver ticket – scooping them a VIP trip to Game 3 of this year’s Stanley Cup Final (and again, a bit of me time with Lord Stanley’s giant silver cup).

And those who find themselves with one of the 2,048 bars correctly identifying the eventual Stanley Cup champions – which will either be the Chicago Blackhawks or the Tampa Bay Lightening – will win a $25 gift certificate to the New York NHL Store.

‘We’re playing off the bracket success of college basketball’s March Madness,’ explains NBC Sports chief marketing officer John Miller.

‘It’s a stunt designed to cut through the clutter, to be DVR-proof and noisy.’

The majority of the chocolate bars will be distributed to hockey fans in postseason markets (ie supporters of teams who have made the playoffs) and a key part of the distribution plan will see local sports station partners inform fans where to get theirs.

Hockey lovers can also get bars by visiting www.bracketbar.nbcsports.com.

“We’re also encouraging the radio stations to talk about and give away their bars,” said Miller.

The campaign’s objective is to drive awareness of all 105 playoff games – every one of which is being aired on NBC and its sister channels NBCSN, NHL Network, USA Network, CNBC and streaming on NBC Sports Live Extra).

It is part of the umbrella and ongoing ‘Every Game, Every Night. Don’t Miss a Moment” campaign that has been running since the playoffs began back in March.

Comment

This limited edition, product-led chocolate bar stunt certainly stands out from the crowded playoffs space (which sees the NHL run simultaneously with the knock-out stages of the NBA season).

It is not only digital video recorder proof, but it is also driving plenty of publicity and is tasty too

Links

NBC Sports Bracket Bar Website:

http://bracketbar.nbcsports.com/

NBC YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/2012NBCOlympics

NBC’s NHL Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/NHLonNBCSports

NBC Sports Google +:

https://plus.google.com/+NBCSports

NBC Sports Website:

http://www.nbcsports.com/