A hockey-themed integrated US campaign from NHL sponsor Dunkin’ Donuts, called ‘Talkin’ Hockey With Pasta and Kendall’, offers a series of comic commercial lessons about some of the sport’s unique vocabulary and promotes the brand’s Cold Brew Coffee.
Terms such as ‘Light the Lamp’ and ‘Five Hole’ are familiar to ice hockey players and hard core fans, but thanks to Dunkin’s campaign Americans will soon be experts in such obscure hockey terms.
The activation from the official US coffee, donut and breakfast sandwich of the National Hockey League (NHL) is fronted by Boston Bruins’ winger and league-leading goal scorer David Pastrňák and US National Women’s Hockey Team captain Kendall Coyne Schofield.
It is spearheaded by a series of New Year spots (in 30- and 15-seconds versions), which leveraged the Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic, and then debuted online on 21 January.
‘Sweaters’ a discussion between the two elite stars about hockey jerseys and sees Pastrňák claim that his knitting skills are as good as his goal scoring. He unveils a special sweater for his cup of Dunkin’ Cold Brew coffee and then hands over an over-the-top friendship sweater featuring both players.
This was followed immediately by a spot called ‘Chirps’ in which Pastrňák and Coyne offer their own perspective on on-ice jawing (while drinking icy Dunkin’ Cold Brew coffee).
The multi-channel activation, developed with agency BBDO New York, runs across TV, online and the brand’s own social channels.
Comment:
Timed to leverage the 2020 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic, which was held on New Year’s Day in the Cotton Bowl Stadium in Dallas, Texas, this initiative follows on from January 2019’s previous Dunkin’ NHL spot, ‘Penalty Box Regular’, which also starred Pastrňák.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHtapgcS2FY
Dunkin’ is the NHL’s category partner in the USA, while Canadian competitor Tim Horton’s is the league’s official coffee chain sponsor north of the border who’s recent hockey campaigns include December 2019’s Gretzky fronted ‘The Autograph’ (see case study) and October 2019’s Timbits kids community hockey programme (see case study).
Links:
Dunkin’
https://www.youtube.com/user/dunkindonuts
https://twitter.com/DunkinDonuts
https://www.facebook.com/DunkinDonuts
https://www.instagram.com/dunkin
NHL
https://www.youtube.com/user/NHLVideo
https://www.instagram.com/nhl/
BBDO New York
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