In this series, we ask top industry execs and marketers across the country about their biggest fears and concerns. What is giving top marketers fitful sleeps these days? This week, we caught up with Joy Ghosh, VP and head of marketing for the Vancouver Whitecaps. Ghosh joined the MLS team last year, and promised to “elevate the creative firepower” of the club. Ghosh had spent nearly eight years working at Molson Coors in both Toronto and Chicago. He most recently worked as the brewer’s VP of marketing, leading brand marketing for its above premium flavor portfolio.

What’s keeping you up at night?

We are about to host the world’s biggest soccer tournament in Vancouver a year from now, and as a local MLS team, we believe we have the passion, the support, the brand that really represents soccer in Vancouver. But we know (the sport is) going to continue to grow leading into 2026, and that this is a really momentous occasion for Canadian soccer fans. I’m trying to figure out, how do we translate that global soccer fandom that’s come to Vancouver, and get all these casual soccer fans, that are passionate and excited about the sport, to also put that passion into the Vancouver Whitecaps? So we think (the 2026 FIFA World Cup) is a huge opportunity, and it’s really one that I see lots of brands, especially now, are leaning into as soccer continues to gain the momentum.

It’s a pretty big moment for the club with the arrival of Bayern Munich star Thomas Müller. How will having a really interesting personality like him help out on the marketing front?

We are fortunate to have such a well-regarded player that is not only prolific on the pitch, with a huge history of winning, to be part of our club moving forward, but he’s also a great personality. And from a marketing lens, the role of content marketing and organic marketing is such a big factor into how we reach fans and grow fandom, especially at a local level. So my goal is definitely to work with him, because he seems really interested in wanting to connect with our fans in Vancouver, to really learn about the city, to tap into those kind of local insights.

For example, he’ll be here next weekend, so we’re trying to find ways for him to tour the city and learn about all the great things about Vancouver. As a marketer, (I want to ensure) I’m capturing that content, publishing it, showing his personality in an authentic way. We know in the world of sports, the more you can build a connection to your players, it helps build fandom, it helps get people excited about them.

Is there anything you can take with you from the CPG world that you can apply to your relatively new MLS role?

I’ve been here for just over a year. And I think one of the key things that I’ve learned in my time at the MLS is bringing a real focus towards fans and brand-led thinking. (During) my time at P&G, we always talked about the consumer being the boss, and at Molson Coors, always being advocate of our consumers. (Now, this is an) opportunity to really deeply understand the sports landscape and the sports fan in Vancouver.

With that, we did some research and actually built on some foundational insights with Ipsos and understanding some of the fundamentals of awareness, consideration, salience, loyalty and building out a true segmentation model to help understand where consumers are on their fandom spectrum. It’s definitely very different coming from a CPG world, where people have a circle of brands and it’s about a more immediate purchase, whereas fandom is about a longer term journey we have with consumers, whether it’s engaging on social media, getting them into our stadium to watch a match.

So, building out a fan-based model, (to) bring them through our overall index and hopefully turn them into loyal and passionate fans, is something that I definitely picked up in the world of CPG.

To what extent is driving annual attendance a key metric and a key focus, and how much control do you have over that?

Our big focus is getting people to buy tickets, particularly single match tickets, getting them into the stadium, experiencing our brand, experiencing our product. There are so many things that drive attendance in the world of sports. A lot of things are out of our control, whether it’s outperformance on the pitch, (and) weather plays a big role, especially in the summer. If it’s a nice, sunny, warm day, it’s very hard for people to stay in the city. They’re out hiking, they’re out in mountains. I often joke like we think about competitive benchmarks; obviously, we look at the games, but in a city like Vancouver, our competition for entertainment is also nature. It’s the hiking, skiing, it’s the things around the city. So we have to look at attendance with a with a very different lens. And how do we create a product that’s compelling and engaging, that also caters to different, unique needs and audiences?

One, for example, is the South Asian fan. There’s a huge South Asian population in the Vancouver area, and they’re huge soccer fans. They play the sport. Their kids have huge enrollment in soccer. But when they go home, they turn on the Canucks. And so we’re trying to find a way to translate that passion for the sport of soccer into building a passion for the Whitecaps. And we do things like celebration matches. We’ve done three years of our Vaisakhi (North Indian/Punjabi harvest) celebration match. We partner with a lot of local artists and influencers. We have the second South Asian person ever that plays on our team, Jeevan Badwal, and he’s from Surrey. Those are all things that help build that fandom, get people excited.

What misconceptions do people have about sports marketing? What might people not appreciate about working in the space?

Growing your brand from the lens of sports has always been a big focus of mine when I was running Molson and Coors Light with all our partnerships with the NHL, MLB and NBA – so I knew the power of sports.

But coming on the team side of it, when you are building a brand in the world of sports, it’s not like any other type of relationship with fans. People care about you. They care deeply about your brand. They’re following you every day. They’re really hyper engaged, when compared to other categories, we’re fighting to break through. But also it really then translates to, how do you tap into that visceral passion you have with your fans, and use that to also capture the needs of more casual fans that aren’t as engaged? You learn a lot by talking to that kind of passionate fan base.

The other thing I’ve really learned is, one of the misconceptions is a lot of the brand building is driven by the team’s performance, the team’s players, and that’s definitely true, but part of my job is building this club for the long term, building a healthy, excited fan base. That’s going to be part of it whether you’re winning or losing, because you can’t control those things. And that’s done through finding ways that really make the Whitecaps brand relevant in the community, in the hearts and minds of the people of Vancouver.