Hockey is as tightly stitched into our country’s culture as a Canadian flag on a Canuck traveler’s backpack. And while it’s fair to assume people raised in Toronto know of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Stanley Cup drought, that may not the case for newcomers to Canada who’ve never seen a hockey game.
In an afternoon presentation during the Multicultural Marketing Conference in Toronto yesterday, two marketing representatives from Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) spoke about initiatives the company has taken to engage Toronto’s ethnic communities in culturally relevant ways. The goal (pun intended) is to get newcomers excited about – or, in many cases, introduced to – hockey, basketball and soccer. (MLSE owns Toronto teams competing all three of these major leagues.)
For example, Jennifer Millard, account director of marketing, mentioned the free game held at the Air Canada Centre each Leafs’ pre-season. MLSE has approached its media partners in different ethnic communities to give away free tickets: 100% of the tickets were redeemed through those venues versus 85% through “mainstream media” partners.
At the community level, Millard referenced “Hockey in the Neighbourhood,” a program that sees Maple Leafs Hockey Development staff visit multicultural communities in Toronto from September through March to teach kids the basics of hockey.
In another community-related effort, Jennifer Callegaro, manager marketing promotions, said the Leafs’ dressing room was used to swear in new Canadians during an official Canadian Citizenship ceremony in October. In the future, MLSE may try the same approach with the Raptors’ dressing room to find potential basketball fans.
While measuring the success of such efforts will take a long time, Callegaro offered a few take-aways based on her experience reaching out to multicultural groups:
• Authenticity and relevance are key; individual ethnic communities present unique challenges
• Engage online; capturing data is important
• Keep talking; relationships must be ongoing in order to reach their full potential
Marketing‘s Multicultural Marketing Conference continues today in Montreal and tomorrow in Vancouver.
