A year after opening his own shop in Vancouver called Kommunity, industry veteran Scot Keith recently added a hockey division to the agency in order to better service new and existing clients.
Keith left Toronto’s Zulu Alpha Kilo in May 2010 and returned to Vancouver where he had spent 10 years of his career working at such agencies as DDB Canada.
Almost immediately, Keith, a self-proclaimed hockey nut, started working on projects for interactive entertainment company Electronic Arts around its Need For Speed brand.
As business started to pick up, Keith started hiring talent on a per-project basis. For instance, on the agency’s Canadian Pacific account, Keith currently works with Lara Palmer (former associate creative director at Taxi Vancouver) and Lorraine Tao (co-founder of Zig).
Over the last year, Keith has forged partnerships with a number of hockey-based brands including Hockey Canada and Slap Happy Animation, which is part of Canucks Sports & Entertainment.
Keith first introduced himself to Hockey Canada when he was a group account director at DDB. A one-time junior hockey player in Ontario, Keith reached out to the association in 2002 when news broke that a man in the U.S. had beaten another man to death at their sons’ hockey practice. Contact was made right before the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and the “Relax, it’s just a game” PSA, which addresses the pressure parents put on young hockey players, was born.
Hockey Canada later called Keith when they heard he had started his own agency. Kommunity is currently working on a project to make “the game, at the grassroots level, better than ever,” said Keith.
Keith recently hired former NHL scout Scott McWilliam as manager of Kommunity Hockey. McWilliam also has experience in sponsorship sales and activation, broadcast, branding, event management and marketing development.
“I needed some in-depth research on the game,” said Keith. “Instead of bringing in a research or marketing person, it made sense to bring in someone who absolutely knew the game… not a pure research person but a pure hockey person.”
As part of a campaign for Travelzoo Canada, Keith enlisted the help from Canucks super fans “The Green Men.” The duo wear green spandex suits and taunt opposition players from their seats next to the penalty box. Kommunity sent the two to a hockey game in Boston and set up a press conference afterwards. It received news coverage and was even spoofed on David Letterman, said Keith. The next phase could involve branded content, he said.
