Branding

ny Knicks rebrand

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A brand campaign that transcends sports

Challenge

For years, fans’ love of the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden had outpaced on-court performance. My focus was to create a brand campaign that completely broke the mold of typical sports team marketing efforts. We needed a campaign that would soar regardless of wins and losses; it would have to reflect the deeper bond the Knicks had with New Yorkers.

Background

Sports team marketing has almost uniformly been formulaic. Team brand campaigns capture a motivational word or phrase (soar, rise, etc.) and leverage it. Occasionally, this comes organically from a team/locker room saying/mantra, sometimes it is a connected phrase to the team’s nickname, city or mascot. Given the right circumstances (almost always a winning team), that campaign can resonate deeply with fans.

Our goal with the Knicks was different. We were the top revenue generating team in the league even though for years on-court performance had lagged. There was something truly special about the Knicks that kept fans engaged even through losses. Indeed, our popularity soared well above our crosstown rival even when they outperformed us on the court.

As is often the case with existing brands — the role of a marketer is generally not to invent from whole cloth branding that resonates, rather a marketer must uncover how and why the brand already connects with fans and create branding that taps into that deeper meaning.

Because our philosophy was different, so too was our approach. Instead of taking pitches from agencies, we brought in a boutique agency to collaborate our way to a solution.

Solution

There was an in-depth discovery process that preceded work on this campaign. My goal was to uncover the meaning of the brand. What were the pillars that defined the New York Knicks brand? Why did fans feel such a deep bond to the Knicks? What I uncovered was that the sport of basketball generally, and the Knicks in particular, tapped into their identity of themselves as New Yorkers. Those New York qualities that they held most dear — the hustle, work ethic, authenticity, teamwork — were the characteristics they associated with the brand.

As I worked with our agency to brief and develop this concept, the idea of a new campaign took hold. The advertising would be as much about our fans as it would our players. Instead of being entirely team focused, our marketing would showcase the stories of legendary New Yorkers and their deep connection to the Knicks. Further we told the stories of our players and how they embraced, cherished and shared these New York (and Knicks) brand values.

The tagline — NY MADE — simply yet powerfully expressed this transcendent idea. We went to work on a 360 degree campaign to bring NY MADE alive. Our internal marketing team scripted and directed NY MADE documentary-style vignettes of several celebrity fans telling their personal love stories of the Knicks and New York City. There was an out-of-home-campaign throughout the city. We integrated with MSG Network broadcasts of games and Knicks programming. We had an original song composed and performed by Grammy-award winning hip-hop artist, Swizz Beatz. There was even a NY MADE clothing line sold exclusively at MSG (created by Black Apple, the city’s hottest designers who were featured in one of the NY MADE vignettes).

We produced both long-form video stories of each NY MADE influencer as well as :30 versions that could be for social media content, on-air (as promos or ads) and in-arena during games.

Below is a sample of these NY MADE vignettes:

Chloe Sevigny — NY MADE :30

Swizz Beatz — NY MADE :30

Amare Stoudemire — NY MADE :30

Rob Stone — NY MADE :30

Black Apple — NY MADE :30

Long-form NY MADE (Black Apple)

Extending Influencer Marketing

At its core, NY Made was a new, powerful version of influencer marketing. Given the importance of influencers in the Knicks Madison Square Garden game experience — one of the hallmarks of attending a Knicks game is to see the celebrities in attendance — we developed another extension to NY Made.

We grabbed celebrities attending Knicks games for a couple of minutes before each game to video them answering questions about the Knicks and New York City. These were the two :30 spots I developed around these.

Making it in NY — Influencer :30

Being at the Garden — Influencer :30

Results / Epilogue

We had teed up a full 360-degree NY MADE campaign to launch at the beginning of the 2014 NBA season. However, with a new CEO who was looking for a traditional sports campaign, only selected components of the NY MADE campaign launched, and, unfortunately did not include the full, planned influencer rollout campaign.

A few years later, I awoke to several phone calls from friends in the City who were abuzz about an amazing new Nike campaign. The Nike New York Made campaign was everywhere in New York — featuring both top athletes and celebrities. I have no insight into whether our Knicks campaign prompted Nike even as the look and feel of the campaign resembled some of our original NY Made creative. Regardless, what is clear to me is that NY MADE is a triumphant declaration which has proven unstoppable.