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SeeWhatSheCanDo

June 11, 2020

NHL's CMO Heidi Browning Shares How to Engage Next-Gen Fans At Horizon Summit 2020

Sport Techie's Horizon 2020 Virtual Summit is in full swing right now offering awesome speakers, networking and a killer virtual event experience. 

Heidi Browning, Chief Marketing Officer, NHL has been one of our favourite speakers. Taking the virtual stage mid day today, she welcomed meeting-goers and hockey-lovers behind the scenes to learn about how the NHL is engaging next-generation fans.  These are excerpts from her outstanding speech. Thanks to Sport Techie and NHL for delivering such great insight that can be applied to sport organizations of all sizes.

Key Insights:

Two Key Guiding Principles For Success

The main takeaways from Heidi's discussion was "The Power of Personal" AND "The Power of Listening".

Get to Know Fans - Youth Advisory Board  

 

They NHL has set up a Youth Advisory board. They're talking to young fans and getting to know them better. One of the key insights they learned... fans want to want to be known and they want to feel like they know players.

Help Fans Connect With Players - Personal Player Brands And Social Media

 

While the COVID-19 NHL league shut down left many of us missing our beloved game, the silver lining is that players have taken to social media in a very pesonal way. 609 of the 700 NHL athletes are now posting on social media. Fans are seeing parts of the player's personal lives they were never privy to before. We're getting to know players personally - seeing the insides of their homes, meeting their partners and pets, seeing how they train, and hearing what truly matters to them.

 

"Fans follow players first, then clubs then leagues" says Heidi. This is such powerful insight and one of the reason's why we created SeeWhatSheCanDo. Sport organizations that focus on helping fans get to know women players of all capabilities, at all levels of sport, can make a real difference in building fan enagegment and supporting the growth of women's sport. 

Humans > Highlights

 

Heidi tells us that "humans are greater than highlights." Story telling is a big part of how the NHL is connecting with their fans. Player, team and fan stories are connecting fans around the awesome sport of hockey. 

 

We Want To Hear Your Story

Sport helps us be more deeply connected and a part of something bigger than ourselves. The collective is so much stronger than each of us on our own. We believe that we can harness the innate qualities of community in sport to make our world a kinder, more inclusive place. 

If she can see it, she can be it! This is why we curate and actively cover women's stories for sports at community, amateur and elite levels of more then 67 physicial activities. Join SeeWhatSheCanDo and share your own active moments to help us spread stories of hope, resilience and creative thinking.

SeeWhatSheCanDo

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Share an active moment directly on our Discover blog or by using #seewhatshecando on social media and inspire others to get moving.

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