hello, my name is gritty
#Gritty
By ki korsik
In the first 30 days of its existence this phenomenon attracted the attention of a huge number of people. The numbers speak for themselves: nearly 70 million people on TV, local audience over 16 million, 4.8 billion views across the internet, worth $151 million.
Who stirred up the sports community in 2018?
Blame the Gritty a.k.a. guardian of the city, Person of the year, Kim Kardashian´s nightmare.
Let me ask you a question: What do the Eagles, 76ers, Phillies but Flyers have in common other than location? A Mascot! Eagles have Swoop, 76ers have Franklin the Dog, and the Phillies they own bear named Phillie Phanatic.
The Hockey team fans always loved their Flyers, but they needed an identity. In order to Compete with such giants, you need something extraordinary, something not banal, a fresh face.
“We wanted to be all-in with this mascot,” said Sarah Schwab, 31, the Flyers’ director of marketing and communications. “We wanted to make a statement.”
So, with the participation of a designer/artist Brian Allen, the hell-spawn monster was born.
The first 60 minutes were a disaster.
“It me. #Gritty” is the first thing the new mascot tweeted.
Twitter exploded! People were stunned, assumed. Nobody really understood was it a joke or a real thing. There were some scathing comments like “WTF” or “Someone needs to get fired over this”
I don`t think the marketers had been expecting such a reaction. The main focus of the hatred was directed at the monsters ugly appearance, its eyes, fur, and comparison with alien creatures. And all this even though the children actually liked him.
The tweet from cross-state rival has changed everything!
With a simple “Sleep with one eye open tonight, bird” Gritty has shown that he is ready to fight back, defend himself, the club and most importantly the city! it quickly became apparent that he was more than just a creep. He had a personality that few mascots in the history of sports could match.
On the same day, marketers asked themselves the question: how to completely sweep the crowd off their feet, how to turn them to our side and at the same time reveal the character of Gritty even more.
Here the huge “Thank you” comes to Kim Kardashian and her recent photo shooting for a magazine.
“The Kim Kardashian tweet was the turning point, It took me the whole game to do it. And then I came up with a simple caption, “Goodnight, internet” said Flyers marketers.
As a result, He had over 50,000 followers that night, and he reached 100K within three days.It’s just crazy! He`s been unstoppable.
People went from completely hating on him when he first made his debut to loving him by the end of the day, and from laughing at him to laughing with him.
But why Gritty became so popular?
I think there are several reasons…
Having a Personality in a mascot is one of the reasons for its success.From the very beginning of its existence, Gritti made it clear that he was not to be trifled with. This is not a mascot that you want to hug, you´d rather want to high-five him and make fun of a friend.
How accounts are maintained in social networks…this is simply a masterpiece! Exactly through social media Gritty shows who is he and what daemon is inside of him.
He reacts to various events from the world with only his inherent humor and sharpness. Especially popular tweets collect thousands of retweets and even more comments. Gritty not only posts his news, but also responds to some comments or repost cool memes about himself.
But the uniqueness of the account is also that it doesn`t over-tweet, sometimes letting whole weeks go by without posting new content. Thus, the audience is always pleasantly surprised by new tweets and happy to discuss them on the Internet. This is definitely one of the best mascot accounts I`ve ever seen!
This mascot is also unique in that its scope of action does not end with social media and an ice platform. Due to the cool work of marketers and his defiant appearance, Gritti was invited more than once to the evening and morning shows. Mascot constantly gives interviews, participates in the organization of sports and near-sports events. Gritti is omnipresent. He
just everywhere!
And yes, do not forget that mascot brings a huge profit to the franchise due to sales of merchandising!
You know, I`m thinking…
If someone, back then, while creating a mascot, would have told Flyers employees that this mascot would be so successful, what would they have said? The answer would most likely be “are you crazy”?