Marie-Philip Poulin, captain of the Montréal Victoire, behind the scenes of the PWHL campaign “Here’s to the bold.”
Ahead of its second season, the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) launched “Here’s to the bold” as part of its first 360 creative campaign. Developed in collaboration with creative partner Uninterrupted Canada (UNC), the campaign featured league veterans and rising stars representing their new team identities and donning their new jerseys for the first time.
Ali Bologna, PWHL senior director of brand and marketing, tells strategy the campaign took an up close and personal look at the athletes on-ice skill, fanbase and off-ice personalities. It was a way to deepen the connection with the league’s fanbase, she adds.
“Where we are as a league as we embark on season two is very different from where most established sports leagues are,” Bologna says. “We are still in the early stages of our growth where driving brand awareness for the league and our amazing product to help grow the game and welcome new fans is a priority. We also launched new team identities for our six teams in September, so building that brand awareness and celebrating this milestone for our teams, communities and fans is another differentiating story that we wanted to spotlight.”
Those six teams include the Toronto Sceptres, Montréal Victoire, Ottawa Charge, New York Sirens, Boston Fleet and Minnesota Frost. The team anthems included formal introductions to “The Inaugural Six,” serving the first holistic introduction to the league’s team identities, including their players and jerseys, as well as visual identities and rallying cries. As part of a multi-layered campaign, “Here’s to the bold” also included “Dear Fans,” a tribute to the PWHL’s fans and a follow-up to season one’s “Dear Hockey,” which premiered exclusively in-arena at each team’s home opener.
“These content pieces encapsulate what the PWHL stands for and the hype and awareness it has brought to women’s hockey,” Minnesota Frost forward Grace Zumwinkle said in a press release. “The first year was monumental in so many ways, and I know season two will be even better with our new team names and logos.”
Ottawa Charge rookie Danielle Serdachny agreed. “Participating in the campaign was a great experience to live as a new player joining the PWHL,” Serdachny said. “This content came out unbelievable and I think our fans will be excited to see it. So many details went into this campaign, and it emerges in the content.”
Bologna said to execute across several creative territories, each piece needed to tell a different story, and speak to new fans, wherever they are across broadcast, digital, in-arena and social media.
The PWHL’s marketing efforts were guided by learnings from season one, she adds. “Hearing what our fans are saying and folding in their ideas and feedback in our marketing efforts moving forward – our campaigns, our advertising, our social content, our branding – is something we’re fortunate to be able to really lean into as we embark on our second season. Our first season was all about driving awareness as a new league, which continues to be a key objective, but we also want to deepen the connections we have with our fans.”
The music for “Here’s to the bold” was composed by Taran Mitchell, who led an intentional approach to the custom score and narrated by Tessa Bonhomme, an Olympic gold medallist with the Canadian women’s national team.
The two-day campaign shoot was produced in Toronto and featured on- and off-ice photography and video elements of 30 players. The production infrastructure was intentionally comprised of diverse talent behind the cameras. A women-led production team and emerging creative talent brought this campaign to life in a way that reflected the PWHL, their players and their fans.
“We looked to other major sports leagues to help understand the landscape for similar campaign launches but felt comfortable that our creative and marketing visions – inspired by our players and our fans – would resonate with the PWHL community,” Bologna says. “We learned very quickly over the last year that our fans really see our amazing athletes as stars on and off the ice and want to see them celebrated. This was something we saw every day on social, in-arena and at events. To be able to elevate the star power of our players for this campaign and showcase them to the world felt like we had come full circle.”
In October, the PWHL clinched the No. 1 spot in a Harris Poll that focused on brand reputation.
