Raptors ad embraces ‘the North’
NBA squad launches campaign celebrating Toronto’s franchise and its gritty basketball folklore
On Dec.10 the Toronto Raptors lost by13 points to the San Antonio Spurs at the Air Canada Centre, but a brighter future was already taking shape on several fronts.
On the court, an underrated Raptors squad was developing into the unit that would later set a franchise record for wins, while courtside Toronto FC executives entertained star Brazilian midfielder Gilberto, who would later form part of that club’s $120million makeover.
And in a private suite, officials from the ad agency Sid Lee met with Raptors brass and rap superstar Drake to preview a major ad campaign set to start two seasons down the road.
Input from Drake, the team’s global ambassador, helped focus the message and the Raptors’ unexpected playoff run made it more urgent. So instead of kicking off in the fall of 2015, the first major phase the Raptors brand overhaul — a 60-second ad with the slogan “We, the North” — hits the market Thursday.
“We are the North Side, a territory all our own,” the ad’s narrator says. “And if that makes us outsiders — we’re in.”
Sid Lee and MLSE chose a mantra they feel is both broadly Canadian an unapologetically Toronto, aimed at turning the city’s unique position as the NBA’s only Canadian team into a rallying point for players and fans.
“We have 35 million people we’d like to represent and we’re asking for their support,” says MLSE president and CEO Tim Leiweke. “No question that it’s about urban Toronto. But our audience is all of Toronto and that’s one of the reasons we’re having the resurgence we’re having.”
The ad acknowledges the franchise’s past, featuring a shot of a husky dogs trotting onto a blacktop court – the Toronto Huskies played the 1946-47 season in a league that would later become the NBA.
Highlights from this season emphasize the club’s present and future, and hard-edged urban scenes from across the city celebrate Toronto and its basketball folklore.
There’s a shot of Regent Park, and another with “Jane and Finch” spray painted in graffiti-style block letters. And there’s one more of a shirtless player in a game of one-on-one. Tattooed across his back are the numbers “416.”
Cameras capture players on an outdoor court on Bleecker St. in St. Jamestown and another game at the cramped gym at Eastern Commerce C.I., each spot equally resonant with people familiar with Toronto’s hoops culture.
“We wanted to do something that was true to Toronto as a city, true to the people . . . and true to the vision that (general manager) Masai Ujiri and Tim (Lei- weke) have for the team,” says Dustin Rideout, Sid Lee’s vice-president of strategy. “Any sports team is not just selling tickets. They’re selling memberships, and that’s what we wanted to champion.”
Leiweke says the campaign was slated to start in 2015 as a lead-in to the 2016 NBA All-Star game, which the Raptors will host.
But he says as this year’s club transformed from an afterthought to an overachiever it embodied the message the new ad intends to convey, so the club decided to move the launch date to this spring.
“Without even looking at the campaign the team became ‘We, the North,’ ” Leiweke says. “This is too great an opportu- nity. The team has taken on the personality of the campaign without even knowing the campaign. We’ve gotta go.”
Leiweke says the coming phases of the team’s top-to-bottom rebranding will unfold over then next 18 months. The team will sport new uniforms in the 2015-16 season, but the new gear should be available commercially by the end of this year.
The team won’t see the full ad until Thursday morning and while Leiweke is confident players will love it, it’s still not clear how it will play outside the Raptors locker room.
Chicago-based sports marketing consultant Quency Phillips points out that while gritty images of inner-city ballers will sway some fans, the NBA itself shies away from the tattooed swagger and streetball-style play the ad showcases.
“You’re inviting the whole audience to come see a style that’s not representative of the NBA,” says Phillips, president and CEO of the Que Agency. “But it is something that’s so urban – that’s what this speaks to.”
But Rideout says reconciling those opposed ideas is part of the ad’s appeal.
“This is about getting people exited about owning a place,” he says. “It’s about celebrating that. It’s very much a declaration of pride about being from a specific area.”