Living with the San Jose Sharks

What happens when the San Jose Sharks come live with a suburban family in their San Jose home? Well, the short answer is, not much. They’re pretty boring, actually. They hang around, do some chores, clip their nails, maybe plunge the occasional toilet. And that’s the point. The Sharks aren’t much fun hanging around at your house. It’s better to come watch them at our house.

And that’s the premise of our new San Jose Sharks campaign. The Sharks have the fans. They’re some of the most loyal in the NHL actually. But the goal was to move them from TV-watching fans to game-attending fans.

To make the point, we brought the Sharks players to a home in suburban San Jose and filmed them doing a bunch of mundane tasks and chores. We had them clean the grill, brush their teeth, paint miniature civil war figurines, you know, boring stuff.

Turns out, even when they’re boring, they’re pretty damn funny. Joe Thornton ordering window treatments from a catalog. Joe Pavelski clipping his toe nails on the living room couch, Brendon Dillon looking for his loofa to take his bath. It’s funny.

And the fact is, the NHL has a problem: it’s hard to see the puck when you’re watching on TV. We began combatting this problem with a Snapchat promotion where we hid custom hockey pucks around San Jose labeled with the headline: “It’s easier to see the puck in person.”

Anyone who finds a puck, enters a special code on the back good for two free tickets.

The success of these promotions helped lead us to this new work. Thanks to Donavan Sell, Director of Photography and an amazing crew who worked like mad to get it all done.

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The small agency blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top advertising agency and digital marketing agency in San Francisco specializing in brand marketing and digital advertising campaigns. Clients include Ford, Dropbox, Roku and San Jose Sharks. We offer the services you’d expect from an integrated, digital marketing agency, but we also offer hourly, brand consulting services for startups, smaller companies and brands that want to start doing something, but aren’t ready to get into a big integrated campaign or media spend. We can help with brand strategy, brand voice, early stage asset development and other communications to get things up and running without breaking the bank. Click here for a free consultation.