U2 and the Ottawa Senators are a playoff promotion waiting to happen. (Source: AP)

Perhaps no team holds higher playoff expectations this year than the Ottawa Senators.  Simply put it’s the Stanley Cup or bust for this group. The team has passed the point of taking solace in moral victories. For years now the Sens have ranked amongst the regular season elite but come playoff season the team has succumbed to immense playoff pressure and opponents in varying degrees of heartbreak for their fan base. So I would argue that the Sens’ promotional team has a very important role in uniting a cautious wait-and-see fan base that doesn’t want to raise their expectations too high in fear of having them broken once again.

So what creative marketing campaign has the team rolled out to unite the Sens’ faithful?

“Rev Up the Red” - a campaign that encourages fans to come to the games decked out in red.

I’m all for the colour-coordinated theme to unite fans in the playoffs but the colour selection cannot be devoid of common sense.

Up until the last day of the playoffs the Senators’ first round opponent could have easily been the Montreal Canadiens. Running a marketing promotion that encourages fans to wear red when the opponent is the Canadiens would be like the Minnesota Twins running with a “Power in Pinstripes” playoff marketing slogan only to have the Yankees as their first round opponent.

In a conference that includes the Hurricanes, Devils, Canadiens and even the Sabres (third jersey) and possible Western Conference opponents in the Red Wings and Flames the Senators’ selection of red as a theme is extremely short-sighted.

Despite the good intentions of the new campaign “Rev up the Red” has to be classified as a bit of a failure. Compared to the Calgary Flames’ Sea of Red, the Senators’ campaign has only been able to muster a Lake or Pond of Red response from the fans.

The only reasonable explanation for the “Rev up the Red” campaign is that the team is catering to the new sponsor, Scotiabank. Yes, the Sens do sport a red home jersey (a jersey which was originally introduced as a third jersey for the team in the late 90’s) but its not one of those automatic and overwhelming colour associations that people make with other teams: Vikings (purple), Buccaneers (pewter), San Jose (teal), Leafs (blue & white). A look around the ScotiaBank Place (I still shudder when writing the new name of the Sens’ arena; its like writing Ben Affleck and Academy Award winner in the same sentence) will quickly validate that there’s no de facto standard jersey for the Sens fan. People are decked out in the white road jersey, the black and gold third jersey and even the old school black road jerseys.

So if we accept that the “Rev up the Red” theme is clearly an attempt to co-brand with Scotiabank I think a bigger question needs to be raised – what is a financial institution thinking, branding themselves with the colour red? “In the Red” is a commonly used term to indicate being in debt. While it may be the truth I don’t want to think of my relationship with a bank as one where I’m constantly reminded how in debt I am to them. Maybe this explains why I feel lot more comfortable dealing with TD Canada Trust and their green branding.

Scotiabank’s logic is a little like teams who still hand out white towels to their fans. In 1982 when Roger Neilson memorably put a white towel on top of a hockey stick and waved it for everyone to see it was an expression of his frustration with the refereeing and his team’s surrender to the officiating. If waving a white flag is a sign of a team’s surrender then rationally it should only be used by lower seeded teams that have been written off by everyone; kind of a tongue-in-cheek, we’ve got no chance response. The Oilers would have been a perfect example of the white flag at work going up against the heavily favoured Red Wings and standing their ground despite being written off by every analyst and expert.

It’s easy from my standpoint to dump all over the Sens’ marketing campaign without offering a better suggestion of mine own.  So in the spirit of Michelangelo’s “criticize by creating” quote allow me to offer my idea for a playoff promotional campaign.

I don’t work for the Sens or have access to their marketing resources but it took me all of two seconds to pick up on the fact that the Sens and Penguins are the only teams in the league that have gold as a prominent colour in their logo/jersey. Since the Pens are distant thought when it comes to the playoffs, the campaign could be used exclusively by Ottawa.

Picture a playoff campaign with “Silver & Gold” as the slogan; gold referencing the Sens and silver representing the Stanley Cup of course. The team could hand out gold coloured t-shirts and silver pom-poms.  And as a theme song they could play U2’s Silver & Gold.  A good portion of the lyrics even translate well to the playoff theme:

Seen the coming and the going
Seen them captains and the kings
See them bright and shiny things
Bright shiny things

The temperature is rising
The fever white hot

A prize fighter in a corner is told
Hit where it hurts
Silver and gold

At least this kind of campaign would give Sens’ fans a unique promotion they could call their own instead of a retread campaign that’s pulled off much better in other markets.