After defeating Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night, the Carolina Hurricanes created a satirical website to try and trick them. However, that site was hacked and made anti-Carolina.
The Hurricanes beat Montreal's Canadiens, and the team sent out a link to its Twitter followers: DidTheHabsLose.com.
The banner photo featured the word "YES!" in bold letters. Below was a banner photo with the word "YES" in bold letters. For $20 (which is Aho's number, and Kotkaniemi signing bonus), the shirts were available to anyone who used the promo code "oui".
It was a remarkable bit of postgame gloating, NHL social media trolling, that made the Hurricanes some money.
"It's our job to entertain and generate revenue. It did both of these things," Mike Forman (Vice President of Marketing and Brand Strategy for the Hurricanes), told ESPN on Friday. It probably offended Montreal Canadiens fans. We are not building our marketing strategy around Canadiens fans, or Canadian media. It's for our fans.
Forman stated that the planning for the stunt began three weeks ago during a weekly meeting with Dan LaTorraca (the team's senior marketing director).
"We have many ideas. Forman said that most of these ideas never see the light. We decided to reserve URLs. We won't do anything with URLs that we lose in a game.
Four teams were allowed to use the Hurricanes' domains in the same way as the Canadiens. The Washington Capitals is one of those teams. The Carolina Hurricanes are another option, as they can cover all bases and still be self-deprecating.
It won't be a secret. Forman stated that it will be the same teams with whom we shared some social media fun over the past few years.
Discussions were held about purchasing URLs for all 32 NHL clubs.
"We considered it. We're not jerks. We are the figurative jerks. We don't believe in throwing the first punch. We'll throw the second one and we'll try to make it a knockout," Forman said, referring to the nickname "Bunch of Jerks", which Don Cherry, former commentator on Hockey Night in Canada, gave to the team.
The website trolling proved to be a huge success from its first deployment. The fun was quickly ended by an unplanned incident: DidTheHabsLose.com, a website that promotes anti-Hurricanes websites, was hacked overnight. Carolina owner Tom Dundon called Forman Friday morning to inquire if it was a hack or if that was part of the bit.
Forman laughed and said, "No, we were actually hack" It's just getting more traction for it.
The team is still debating how to deal with the hack website.
"We might have fun with it, but we may also talk to our IT team about getting it fixed. Forman said, "We'll do something."
Although it was short-lived, the experiment was a huge success. With a social media stunt, the Hurricanes again attracted the attention of hockey fans and even moved merchandise. The fact that Aho as well as Kotkaniemi scored goals in the win over Montreal was a bonus.
Forman stated, "The fact we could drive any revenue at all on a random Thursday night was a great win for us." This is our brand. We are bold and big. While we know that we will cause a lot of people to be offended, we also plan to entertain them -- especially our fans.
