LIVE EVENTS // INFLUENCER STRATEGY // BRAND PARTNERSHIPS // SPORTS CREATIVE

LA Kings // Play-offs Campaign

YEAR: 2022

Project overview

The play-off campaign for a major sports team has to be a 360-degree full creative effort that can stop traffic and the scroll while igniting a unified sense of pride for LA and the Kings brand. The key touchpoints include a full social takeover along with OOH creative. Play-offs also offer branded partnership opportunities and require strategic, clear benchmarks around reach, affinity packaged in an enticing brand narrative.

The challenge

We needed to make the campaign feel larger than LA and ignite a movement to be a part of the Kings return to play-offs. Within LA, we needed to cut through the noise of Hollywood and the other leagues playing. To do that, we had to identify existing and new touchpoints with the city and our fanbase and put our mark there.

My role

Creative Director - spearheading the play-off campaign from brand concept to execution across social, in-arena, and broadcast. Leading our production. and creative teams to deliver key art and full program packages within a cohesive visual system amplifying our brand, city, and fan community.

The solution

Create a full brand creative system that could be adapted across multiple channels and executions to make LA feel like it was a kingdom for champions and everyone was invited to be a part of the experience whether on social or driving down the 405. The program required regular deliverables and reporting to pivot with the outcome of each round and keep the energy going throughout the run.

hero film

Our marketing spot was aired on broadcast and cut-down for social and generated buzz the moment we clenched play-offs. The concept used VO from our couch that lead the concept with grit and determination to perform, raise blood pressure and generate excitement for the coming weeks.

visual identity

For the play-off brand system we developed a custom logo and style guide that was executed across all creative from in-arena, to social posts, to the rally towels on every seat for the first home match-up. The play-off identity played off our regular season look and expanded it feel elite, polished, and a punctuation for everything we created.

Social post - “Clinched” graphics

Lead-up to play-off - social graphics

Lead-up to play-off - social graphics

Fan give-away creative

in-arena creative package

The play-off visual package was palpable in the arena from opening hype video utilizing every piece of real estate we had to showcasing our brand partners in a seamless creative execution. The full in-arena creative package included a full rework of all key in-play moments and extended to activations in-arena throughout the 3 periods.

Pre-game in-arena hype video with full screen span view

Partnership display visuals

Gametime prompt spans

vip influencer event program

The campaign identity featured a dynamic type system that fractured and reformed—symbolizing the breaking and rebuilding that defines athletic resilience.

campaign results

  • New and improved Social & Content Strategy outperformed regular benchmarks and exceeded expectations with 35M social impressions from end-of-season leading into play-offs.

  • Pre-Game Ticketing release messages were the most impactful - all home play-off games sold out record time compared to previous play-off runs.

  • Playoff social and video posts smashed regular season metrics with 35% increase in post reach, 78% increase in post engagement, and 178% increase in average video views PER DAY.

  • Launching the VIP influencer campaign brought in an estimate $750K in additional partnership revenue for one day event.