There’s always a bigger fish
One of the most popular marketing activations undertaken by the San Jose Sharks is the annual Star Wars night. Once per season, the arena is filled with Star Wars characters, with the in-game entertainment reflecting the night.
I decided to try to take Star Wars Night - which is a fairly common theme night across sports - to the next level, to make the Sharks stand out among the crowd. To do so, I committed to including a Star Wars reference in every single social post I made that day, from our initial Gameday push at 8AM to the final post at the end of the night. This was an undertaking that required several hours of research on my part, including compiling a reference sheet of quotes and names to use throughout the game.
In addition to leading the charge on the copy, I also served as the creative director for all the graphics we put out on social - sourcing the fonts, mocking up the templates, and even providing rough sketches of the logo parodies I wanted our graphic designers to create. I ensured that I would have a graphic designer sit up with me in the press box during the game so we could come up with Star Wars photoshop ideas on the spot.
In the end, this night performed well above a normal game night on social, and even provided us with our highest-performing post of the season: a photoshop of goalie Aaron Dell as the Man-Dell-orian.