MANITOBA MOOSE 19/20 CREATIVE
Manitoba Moose is the AHL team owned by the company behind Winnipeg Jets. During my time as a graphic designer at True North Sports + Entertainment, my work focused heavily on the marketing needs for the team. Working within the brand, I developed creative for several campaigns, promo events and templates, and adapted my designs for web, print, and in-game digital signage.
2020/21 SEASON TICKET CAMPAIGN
Each year, during the second half of the hockey season, the Manitoba Moose releases tickets for the upcoming season, along with special offers and benefits for current season seat holders and early bird customers. It’s one of the largest marketing campaigns of the year; we advertise online, in print, and in-game in order to reach the largest and most diverse customer base possible in Winnipeg.
My approach for this creative was to pull all the disparate elements together to create a layout that balances the player, the fans and the text in a visually interesting way that still leaves room for extra body copy without creating a crowded effect. I treated the fan images as a secondary element, to show that the team is the main draw, but the atmosphere and excitement on game day is another major reason to attend.
MINI PACK CAMPAIGN
At the start of the 19/20 season, we created a Mini Pack campaign to encourage fans to buy tickets in bulk. This also came along in conjunction with our 20th season celebrations, so we decided to lean on this anniversary heavily in the campaign marketing graphics.
I reskinned our website, created static and motion social media posts, and developed a full digital signage package for the bowl to promote this offer.
Each mini pack is carefully chosen to reflect different themes; Weekender featured mostly games on the weekend, Canadiana had us face off against Canadian teams, and Overtime featured the most statistically even matchups . I created social videos to promote each of these packs as distinct from one another to help get the customer excited about their selection.
SPECIAL PROMO GAMES
The marketing team behind the Manitoba Moose produces a number of promo events throughout the year to encourage ticket sales and sell merchandise. Each of these promotions requires its own creative that is distinct from the regular season look while still representing the team’s branding. For each game, a long asset list is required, from social graphics and digital signage to traditional print ads and billboards, meaning the design needs to be not only engaging and eye catching but also very versatile.
Above, you’ll see the base creative I developed for the Halloween Game, The Country Music Day, and the 20 Seasons Hat Giveaway, here used as instagram stories. The idea was to give each event its own creative look, employing illustration, texture and imagery that wouldn’t regularly be used. The Hat Giveaway graphics are the most closely associated with our general branding, tweaked just slightly to fit the theme.
The images below show how each event creative translated to the arena bowl on game day, helping to set the atmosphere and further promote the themes.
One of the more popular initiatives in the 19/20 season was the annual Super Hero Day. With an invitation to dress up in costume and a free trip for four on the line, our Super Hero theme resulted in an almost sold out game, a big win for the AHL team.
For the creative, I chose three of our popular players and developed comic illustrations of them, and incorporated textures such as parchment and halftones to push the visual theme. I also developed an animation inspired by motion comics to promote the event on social media.
REUSABLE SOCIAL MEDIA GIFS & VIDEO TEMPLATES
The social media and game production teams behind the Moose often need to produce sophisticated graphics on the spot, reacting to lineup and score changes. So, at the start of the season, I developed an extensive library of templates and shareable GIFs for them to use. This way, they’re able to deliver the constant updates necessary while maintaining a consistent brand standard.
