Brands In Sport: Top Mentioned Brands by NHL Finals 2019 Teams

The NHL Finals pitted the Boston Bruins and the St. Louis Blues in a battle for the Stanley Cup. Ultimately, the Blues, who had never won a Stanley Cup, took home the trophy in a 4-3 lead. Approximately 9 million viewers tuned in to watch Game 7 of the Finals which is the highest tv ratings for the NHL in 25 years. With such high attention paid to the series, sponsor brands are hoping to capture some of the excitement of the fans for their brand. We examine which brands the Bruins and the Blues mentioned most on social media during the playoffs.

Most Mentioned Brands By The Boston Bruins

The top three most mentioned brands in May and June by the Boston Bruins are JetBlue, NBC, and SAS. JetBlue was mentioned 46 times with a Promotional Effectiveness (PE) score of 80, SAS has the same PE score and the Bruins only posted half as much content. The quality and frequency of the posts promoting both brands is excellent. However, SAS is not receiving great engagement on promoted posts in comparison to non-promoted posts and this has to do with engaging the audience with interesting content for those branded posts.  It is also common for all three brands to have a low share of voice because the Bruins want to promote all of their sponsors during this time period. While not a team sponsor, NBC got a benefit of being the broadcaster of the NHL Finals, getting promoted by the Bruins during every game.

Most Mentioned Brands By The St Louis Blues

The St. Louis Blues had a lot less social media mentions of every brand compared to the Bruins, however, the Blues highest number of social mentions is NBC (10). As mentioned, NBC aired the Stanley Cup, so they are received promotions by both teams throughout the airing of the series. Of the three brands most mentioned by the Blues, the Blues have an equally high Promotional Effectiveness score for Enterprise and Bud Light. The quality and frequency that the Blues post about both brands is excellent, however, these posts could drive more fan engagement. To increase the engagement score, the Blues need to hook the audience in with more interesting content such as branding highlights or post-game score recap posts. Both sponsors could continue to increase engagement and make promoted posts more engaging than non-promoted posts in order to increase the promoted post score. 

The Social Winner

Overall, the Boston Bruins did a better job at mentioning brands in more posts as well as more effectively promoting those brands than the St. Louis Blues. The Bruins tend to drive more fan engagement with promotional content than the Blues even though the Blues won the series. Capitalizing on the fan enthusiasm to promote partners is a key way to drive more sponsorship value.