True Hockey A6.0 Ad Critique: USA Hockey Magazine 2016

Overview of the Advertisement

The advertisement under review appears in USA Hockey Magazine, September 2016 edition. This is the prime season for advertising hockey equipment because the season is about to begin — players are buying their gear, and for a relatively new manufacturer such as True Hockey, making a strong impression with this ad is essential.

The ad promotes a hockey stick, the A6.0. It features a white male adult hockey player in his twenties, stopping on the ice and holding the stick out toward the camera. The player has a generic hockey player appearance — a somewhat square face with stubble — but the model is staring blankly at nothing in particular, which makes the pose feel unnatural. It is also worth noting that the stick is advertised as "the ultimate shooter's stick," yet the player is neither in a shooting motion, a shooting position, nor a post-shot position.

Visual Design and Tagline

The ad uses a black and blue color scheme: a dark blue background, blue-black ice, a black stick, and a blue jersey, punctuated by white ice spray as the player stops. There is relatively little copy. The main tagline is "A True Shift in Power." This tagline is clever in one sense — a hockey stick does transfer power between player and puck. A typical stick bends, providing torque that augments the force a player puts into it, so this transference of power is a genuinely important product feature. The word "True" in the tagline also functions as the brand name.

The five words of the tagline are rendered in three different fonts. The brand name having its own font makes sense, but "Power" also receives a distinct font — and it does not read as powerful, being semi-transparent and visually overshadowed by the stick itself. The use of forward slashes ("/"), which appear twice, conveys no particular meaning and appears to be purely decorative, though the aesthetic effect is poor.

There is a glaring typographical error in the body copy: "Availale now." This is inexcusable in a professional advertisement. There is also a slogan — "Made true. Play true." — that mixes verb tenses without apparent reason. Furthermore, "made" and "play" are among the most generic words available to describe those actions; they are not hockey-specific, which further reduces the ad's impact. Since the sole target market is hockey players, the language should speak directly to them rather than to any generic athlete.

Copy and Product Claims

The bulk of the body copy highlights three product features: strength, balance, and power. These are not necessarily the most important attributes for a stick being sold as a shooter's stick. Flexibility, not strength, is the key attribute for a shooter — hockey players typically evaluate a stick by its flex rating, which determines how it stores and releases energy during a shot. Strength matters in that the stick must withstand some load, but the relevant descriptor for the shooting market is flex or tension, not strength.

Balance is even less relevant. Hockey players balance quite adequately on their own, and a stick is unlikely to affect anyone's mobility past early childhood. In promoting something the target market does not care about, the ad suggests the product was not developed with deep insight from actual hockey players. Only the final line — "maximum power with minimal effort" — addresses an attribute the target market genuinely values. Recreational and minor-league players lack the raw power of professionals, so a stick that converts their energy into puck speed more efficiently is a meaningful proposition. This appeal has proven effective in selling golf clubs for decades, and applying it to hockey sticks is a smart strategic choice — but it is buried and underdeveloped in the ad.

As outlined in target market theory, an advertisement should be designed around a clearly defined audience whose specific needs guide every creative decision (Porta, 2010). The copy here does not meet that standard.

Conclusion

The ad does not align itself with any particular value, either. People play hockey for a wide range of reasons, but the ad never ties the product to any of them. There is nothing about scoring, winning, playing hard, teamwork, or even fun. There are many values that could anchor an advertisement for a hockey stick, and this ad employs none of them. Even the model is expressionless — a generic-looking individual staring blankly into the distance.

This leaves the ad without a meaningful story. It resembles clip art more than a persuasive brand statement. An advertisement for a shooter's stick should tell a story about scoring goals; this one does not. There is no connection between the imagery and the narrative the company presumably wants to communicate — that using this stick will improve your shot and help you score more goals. The copy relates neither to the product's actual benefits nor to the target market's real desires in any meaningful way. Research indicates that the company has produced more descriptive copy elsewhere (Hockeymonkey.com, 2016), but for a relatively unknown manufacturer, the advertisement in USA Hockey Magazine is poor and unconvincing.

References

Hockey Monkey (2016). True A6.0 Matte Grip Sr. Hockey Stick. Hockey Monkey. Retrieved September 28, 2016 from

Porta, M. (2010). How to define your target market. Inc. Magazine. Retrieved September 28, 2016 from

Xi, T. (2016). What are the key persuasive techniques used in consumer advertising? Houston Chronicle. Retrieved September 28, 2016 from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/key-persuasive-techniques-used-consumer-advertising-74567.html