Dallas Advertising Stars

In a sport like hockey where your audience is small but passionate, shunned but loyal, you have to have a sense of humor - especially when trying to add to your audience. Hockey and humor have long gone hand in hand when it comes to advertising and while we can debate the relative effectiveness of these ad campaigns one thing is for sure...they're darn entertaining.

Observe, for example, the only living remnant of the Caps' ingenious marketing campaign, "Always Intense":



Then of course there are the NHL's new ads showing players acting just like you and me:





The latest in this fine tradition is a series of billboards appearing in and around Dallas promoting the Stars. With the tagline "come into the cold", these boards skewer everyone - including the NFL, MLB, and the NBA. You can view all nine of them as a PDF but here are a few of my favorites, the ones that take on the big three:

Incidentally, the Stars' marketing department decided to show a little restraint and leave Michael Vick alone...for now. Said Stars' president Jim Lites, "it's a long life. We can take these billboards down and start over."