After inking the biggest arena naming rights agreement in North America for $800 million, the MLSE Live marketing team had to embark on the largest rebrand in company history. In July 2018, the Air Canada Centre in Toronto became Scotiabank Arena. But agreeing to change the name is one thing - getting fans to change behavior is something else.
CHALLENGE
Get fans in Toronto to call the arena by its new name - Scotiabank Arena. A monumental task in changing behavior that research told us could take up to 20 months.
SOLUTION
Understand that we were not changing an opinion - we were changing a habit. Based on the psychology of habit change, we looked to deploy three key tactics: (1) update triggers, (2) deploy high frequency reminders and (3) reward the new behaviour.
We deployed a multi-faceted campaign designed to speak to fans at every step of their journey to the arena and anywhere they would see it.
RESULTS
Fans embraced the new name in less than 6 months.
The Scotiabank Arena reached comparable brand awareness to other stadiums in only 4 months.
Positive opinion of Scotiabank increased 62% and consideration increased 50%.