Mike Fisher Case Study
Strategy
In Ottawa, Ontario Mike Fisher is a household name. The star forward of the NHL’s Senators is loved and respected by many—young and old alike. In addition to being a great hockey player Mike is also known for his strength of character and openness about his faith. His desire to use his unique position to help others led him to develop an off-ice identity primarily to raise awareness for the charities he cares deeply about. It’s one way he’s giving back to his community and witnessing to the higher calling in his life.
Identity
Strong, aggressive, determined and hard working describe both Mike’s attitude and style of play. So we developed his wordmark and icon to visually express these characteristics. The bold graphics also intelligently incorporate a puck, Mike’s jersey number (#12) and the historic symbol for Christianity—the fish.
Website
Fans of Mike Fisher unite! Creating a place where fans can go for “all things Mike” required a stylish, dramatic design and tons of great content—updates, news, articles, video clips, photos, stats, downloads, etc. The site was programmed to automatically update Mike’s statistics and goal videos, which keeps the content fresh without distracting Mike from his focus of crushing his opponents on the ice. The site has been a real hit with thousands of unique visitors each month.
Visit www.mikefisher.ca.
Collateral
We felt a little like kids in a candy store when faced with designing Mike’s concept merchandise, autograph cards and stationery. Could we have better jobs? We think not.
Music City Makeover
In the life of a professional athlete, change can happen fast. Compass Creative client and NHL hockey player Mike Fisher saw that first hand this past year.
In the summer of 2010, Mike married country music recording artist Carrie Underwood and began married life by splitting time between homes in Nashville and Ottawa. In March of 2010, however, his professional and personal life became more geographically aligned by a trade between the Ottawa Senators and the Nashville Predators.
With a new team comes a new uniform, new colours and new fans. Although the Mike Fisher brand is a personal one, there's no denying that interest in it is generated by his fans. In this case, the brand strategy is to complement and enhance, not overpower, the team brand Mike is associated with. So with the move to Nashville, changes to Mike's own graphic identity and website were needed to maintain continuity.
Both the icon and wordmark in Mike's graphic identity were designed with colour versatility in mind. The site background and text also adapted well to the new blue and orange colour scheme. It's the same strong, determined, get-r-done feel that reflects Mike the person, but now the colours reflect Mike the Nashville forward.
Mike's new Twitter account has been hugely popular, so we gave it more attention and prominence on the updated site – to help keep Mike and his fans communicating about the causes he cares about.
Finally, new photography and downloads were added to keep the demand satisfied for current images of Mike in action.
The new colours look good on Mike and we're excited for him and his new fan base in Nashville.
