JERSEY LAUNCH // CULTURE // BRAND STRATEGY & STORYTELLING

LA Kings // Merch Campaigns

YEAR: 2018 - 2022

Project overview

Each season in sports, there are numerous merchandise releases as well as sales initiatives to move key products from the brand. Each effort requires a distinctive strategy and release plan to meet our goals and weave a story to ignites fans to want to claim their piece of wearable history. These campaigns include alt jersey launches and working with our merch team promoting game-used sales.

The challenge

Releases like the alt jersey included the chrome helmet which still required a bit more buy-in from fans to get excited about it. It did however feature a historic brand element we brought back with adidas to help create buzz and inspire the narrative of welcoming a new era of Kings fans to wear our mark.

Game-used is a yearly campaign that requires a fresh take each season. We wanted to find a fun way to show how fast buyers can get their hands on game-used whether they were buying it based on the player, or using items like gloves and skates when they hit the ice in professional-grade athletic gear.

My role

Creative Director - leading our Creative and Production teams to develop micro- merchandising campaigns that told unique stories that could attract a range of fans and hockey enthusiasts. We worked with Hockey Development on identifying not just. our athletes to feature, but the young talent featured in the Heritage promo. Script development, styling, talent sourcing were part of the role to ensure a cohesive, professional level production was produced. Then, we needed to develop the full creative package with the content to bring the campaign to our digital POS and social channels for promotion.

The solution

Treat each opportunity to work with our players as new moment to help them promote their brand and personality. Creating a sharable, multi-dimensional approach to each campaign that pays tribute to our history while welcoming new faces and generations of players to the brand and the game of hockey.

The hero film was inspired by the idea of heritage, passing down the love of the Kings and hockey from generation to generation. The Promo 1 video features a youth hockey player from the LA Kings ‘Little Kings’ club discovering the old marks jersey. The piece also utilizes historic footage of moments the Kings wore the jersey in years prior to show the legacy and excitement to bring back an impactful mark to our fans.

We then developed a second spot that features one of the top ‘younger’ players on the team who was breaking records and capturing the attention on a predominantly older team highlighting the next generation of long-standing Kings to watch.

launching the ‘90s heritage jersey

‘90s Era Heritage Jersey Promo 1

‘90s Era Heritage Jersey Promo 2

visual identity

We utilized Alex Iafallo on Media Day with the set-up ready to capture hero photography highlighting the new jersey and full kit featuring the now staple piece chrome helmet' worn together. The promote the sale of the jersey and also encourage fans to wear the ‘right’ jersey with our teams, we released a jersey schedule for our fans to know when to break out the new old jersey with our Kings throughout the season.

game-used campaigns

Players go through quite a few jerseys during the season, and the sale of these along with other game-used gear helps bring in additional revenue to our hockey development efforts. Previously, we would do a small static social graphic of featured items. To give the campaign a boost, we tapped into two players who were gaining interest from our fans and produced two spots to show the hand-off off gear straight from the players with a comedic, warmer angle than some of our other merchandise marketing promos.

Adrian Kempe - Game-used Promo

Alex Iaffalo - Game-used promo

campaign results

  • The success of the Alt Jersey campaign lead to selling out within hours of launch. The jersey was restocked 3x more than previously forecast.

  • Bringing back the heritage mark was such a success, it is now, once again, the main mark for the LA Kings brand.

  • Players featured in Game-Used promotions saw a 150% increase in search results during content promotion. Showcasing their fan affinity and marketability within the brand.

  • By pivoting to a more dynamic, video lead creative execution, Game-Used sales surpassed all KPIs and set the new standard for sales season over season.