October 22, 2005
Reebok’s Monopoly
October 22, 2005, 7:14 PM | 0 Comments
I’ve been meaning to post something about this for a while now, and maybe the title is a little strong, but the NHL has been back for almost a month now and I’ve noticed several new things about the game, and about it’s marketing. Reebok is all over the place!
Reebok (starting this year) is the official apparel provider for the NHL, which means they’re responsible for providing every team with several different jerseys. Each team usually has at least 3 different jerseys. A home jersey, a road jersey and at least one alternate.
So, with Reebok now making the jersey’s for the NHL, that leaves Major League Baseball as the only major North American professional sporting league that doesn’t use Reebok for their apparel. Think about it. The NFL, the CFL (although this can be argued that it’s not a “major” professional league), the NBA and now the NHL all have the Reebok vector logo somewhere on their uniforms.
Basically, from early September (start of the NFL season) until late June (end of the NHL and NBA seasons), anyone watching a professional sports team will have that Reebok logo flashed in front of their eyes for three hours. That’s pretty incredible advertising exposure, and is probably very good news for Adidas, who recently purchased Reebok.
Getting back to the NHL, Reebok has been involved in all of the NHL’s core advertising initiatives this year (or at least as far as I’ve seen). Before the season started there was the commercial about opening day where we see several pieces of Rbk hockey equipment being strapped on to ‘the warrior.’
My favourite piece of Reebok advertising though happens in a rather unique location. Every blue line, and every red line in every arena in the NHL, the Rbk logo is printed on the boards where the blue lines and red lines extend. It’s a placement that I thought was rather unique. (And apparently interesting enough for me to post a blog entry about it).
Thoughts?