• by Karl Greenberg , October 2, 2008

Bridgestone Firestone's U.S. and Canadian operations are title sponsors of The Bridgestone NHL Premiere 2008, a series of games this weekend in Sweden and the Czech Republic. The Ottawa Senators and Pittsburgh Penguins will play two games in Stockholm, and the New York Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning will play their games in Prague.

The sponsorship is part of a multi-year deal that Bridgestone Firestone North American Tire LLC (BFNT) and Bridgestone Firestone Canada Inc. (BFCA) signed in March that makes the Bridgestone brand "Official Tire of the NHL, NHLPA and the Hockey Hall of Fame."

The deal gives the company rights to the league trademarks, promotions tied to other major NHL events like the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and NHL Draft.

Phil Pacsi, vice president of N.A. Consumer Tire Marketing, BFNT, says the deal gives Bridgestone promotional opportunities year round. He points out that the alliance had originally been designed to give the Canadian arm of the company the kind of sponsorship presence that Bridgestone gets in the U.S. as official tire of the National Football League.

"The deal with the NFL was really good for the U.S. business, but hockey is the favored professional sport in Canada, so we started looking to do a deal with professional hockey," he says. "But we found we were able to do the deal for North American--and global--rights." He says the company just completed a gift-with-purchase consumer retail promotion with NFL.com and NHLshops.com.

In the Prague and Stockholm games, the Bridgestone logo will be center ice, integrated with the Premier Series logo, and camera-visible on the rinks' dasher boards.

The games will be broadcast in North America on Versus (formerly the Outdoor Life Network) in the U.S. and CBC in Canada. Bridgestone will also be prominent during the New Year's Day Winter Classic game.

Pacsi says that during broadcasts, Bridgestone will run the "Screaming Squirrel" spot with the "It's Bridgestone or Nothing" theme that broke during the Super Bowl, and will also tout its Blizzak winter tire. There will also be hockey-specific print ads in sports and hockey publications and game-day programs. "Blizzak is a great winter tire, and hockey is perceived as a winter sport, so that will be prominently advertised," he says.

Pacsi says Bridgestone is preparing a marketing program with the NHL Players Association that will feature a well-known player and a fan-interaction element. And he says the brand is working with dealers to devise individual grassroots efforts. The company has 2,200 company-controlled stores and some 3,000 independent retailers.