The conventional wisdom about marketing to hockey fans in Canada has always been that you must genuflect before the altar of the game itself — the ice, the speed, the lifetime devotion that supposedly begins in infancy with a miniature stick placed ceremonially in the crib.
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By StuAIrt Elliott
· October 19, 2026
The conventional wisdom about marketing to hockey fans in Canada has always been that you must genuflect before the altar of the game itself — the ice, the speed, the lifetime devotion that supposedly begins in infancy with a miniature stick placed ceremonially in the crib.
The revelation that paying people to talk about your product might work better than paying algorithms to show your product has arrived, as these things do, with the force of discovery.
The National Squash League, which has spent its brief existence in the sort of obscurity that makes even lacrosse look overexposed, has found itself a title sponsor with reach: iHeartMedia, the audio colossus that emerged from the ashes of Clear Channel Communications.
The notion that influence on social media might be measured by something other than the number of people who have clicked "follow" is not, strictly speaking, new.
The model is as old as the magazine rack at the sporting goods store: a publisher inspires readers to buy gear, then collects a small tribute when they do.
The advertising industry has spent the better part of a decade assuring itself that influencer marketing is no longer experimental, that it has matured, that it deserves a seat at the grown-ups' table.
It is a truth universally acknowledged in advertising that a financial services company in possession of an F1 sponsorship must be in want of a race car to put in its commercials.
The food delivery company Just Eat, having spent a considerable sum on celebrity-driven campaigns over the past several years, has concluded that there might be a better use for all that money.
