Stanley Cup might spur more Blackhawks ad deals

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: Courtesy of Phil Rosenthal at the Chicago Tribune: : ----------------------------------------- : : Stanley Cup might spur more Blackhawks ad deals : Would a Stanley Cup championship put the "hawk" in Blackhawk? : Do Chicago's Patrick Kane, Marian Hossa and Jonathan Toews pitch as well as they pass? Does Duncan Keith have a winning smile? And how would fans who cheered each save by Antti Niemi respond if he urged them to spend? : "Anytime a team or a player makes it to (a championship) level, it increases their marketing potential at least five- or tenfold," said Bill Chipps, senior editor of the IEG Sponsorship Report. "But the athletes reaping the most dollars from endorsement deals aren't in the National Hockey League. That's going to be players from the NFL, Major League Baseball and the NBA." : And golf, tennis, NASCAR, soccer … : "My point is, hockey players don't capture nearly as much as those in other stick-and-ball sports," Chipps said. : "The athleticism of their sport, I don't think, is appreciated by enough people to have the walk-on-water mythology that Michael Jordan had," said Steffan Postaer, chairman and chief creative officer of EuroRSCG Chicago. "Even if what they do is harder than any other sport, the American public doesn't appreciate it as such. They can't and won't and don't." : For one thing, the Stanley Cup finals are unlikely to amass the kind of audiences nationally from which major stars are launched, despite strong rooting sections in Chicago and Philadelphia, the nation's No. 3 and 4 television markets, respectively, and hockey ratings on the rise this season. : Last year's Game 7 of the NHL title series in which Pittsburgh defeated Detroit was the league's most-viewed game in the United States since 1973, and it averaged 8.079 million viewers. Three times that number watched Lee DeWyze get crowned last week on "American Idol," its least-watched finale since 2002. : The U.S.-Canada gold-medal Olympics hockey game in Vancouver averaged 27.6 million viewers, but the Olympics are better at luring casual viewers across the country. And the Winter Games only reinforced the standing of the NHL's most marketable star, Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Sidney Crosby, who scored Canada's game-winning overtime goal. : "You almost need a 'Miracle on Ice' moment (to break through nationally), or you need someone like (Wayne) Gretzky who transcends the sport," said Bob Dorfman, a sports marketing expert with Baker Street Advertising. : Even Crosby isn't exactly a household name in a lot of households, compared with, say, pro football's Peyton and Eli Manning. : "Maybe Crosby doesn't have the personality to pull that off," Dorfman said. "Maybe if he were a little more out there, a little better looking, a little more charismatic." : A big part of the Blackhawk's "One Goal" ad campaign focused on drawing out players' personalities. That's complemented by video on the team Web site and "Blackhawks TV" programs the team has paid to air locally. : A planned joint ad campaign designed to give more exposure to Hawks stars and draft off the popularity of the Chicago Bears, which, even as the Hawks build their TV ratings, still attract more than twice as many viewers, was shot down by the National Football League. : It was the Blackhawks who sought to get their players involved in marketing partner Harris Bank's most recent ad campaign. : "When a team is building their image, if they're sophisticated about it, they want to make the entire brand extremely strong," said Justine Fedak, Harris' chief marketing officer. "The way you would do that is you take the Blackhawks brand and associate it with other strong brands." : Harris wound up using Brent Seabrook and Keith, but the important thing for the Blackhawks was establishing a presence of some kind. : "When I think of the Blackhawks, I still think of Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita," Dorfman said. : Certainly, that's what the Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana Chevy Dealers were thinking at one point, said Mike Hillstrom, president of Select Marketing Group, who works with the group. : Hillstrom said Tom Gollinger of Woodfield Chevrolet, a longtime hockey fan, helped steer his fellow dealers away from "the old-timers," having identified Kane and Toews as Hawks stars of the future. They are in the middle of a multiyear endorsement deal with the auto group. : "Where their value goes up is in the Chicago market because there's so much excitement around the Blackhawks," Chipps said. "On the national stage, well, that's where it gets a little bit dicier." : Postaer said blue-chip national endorsements might be possible for the Blackhawks. "But that's so last century," he said. "I'd like to see where they can parlay this stuff online. What's the digital strategy, and how can they talk to advertisers to create conversations with consumers that way as opposed to what's the McDonald's commercial?" : The Blackhawks, Postaer said, are comparable to the New England Patriots before Tom Brady became a star and the players were mostly unknown. The most recognizable and marketable aspect of the Hawks is their iconic logo and sweater and heritage. : Postaer's ears perked up in January 2008 when then-Hawks coach Denis Savard in a postgame rant said his players needed to "commit to the Indian." . : "'Commit to the Indian,' the copywriter in me said, 'That's going to catch on,'" said Postaer, co-author of the "Not your father's Oldsmobile" campaign. "That was awesome." : The franchise didn't embrace the line, but the power of the logo is huge. : "People don't buy skates the way they buy basketball shoes," Dorfman said. "The kids see Kobe (Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers) wearing the shoes and they buy them. … So it's probably more of a team sell than an individual sell, and it's those jerseys and team paraphernalia, and that's cool stuff." : But the Cup finals will end in June, not exactly the time one typically dons a sweater. : "Its half-life will be fleeting," Postaer said of hockey fever in Chicago. "The radioactivity of the Blackhawks will be distant. By July, only passionate sports nuts on the radio will (care)." : But as the weather begins to turn cooler … : "You reawaken the Indian," he said.

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