Editor’s Note:
This article is part of a Digital Summit Collective series where we’re turning standout live sessions from recent Digital Summit events into actionable, on-demand insights for our community. Each piece is adapted from a real stage presentation—capturing the ideas, examples, and strategic thinking that resonated most with attendees.
Customer loyalty grows when brands move beyond transactions and create experiences that make people feel like they are part of something bigger.
For the Carolina Hurricanes, the product may be hockey, but the brand is built around something much bigger than what happens on the ice.
That distinction became especially clear in 2020. When fans could no longer gather in the arena, the Hurricanes lost the shared experience at the center of their business almost overnight. The organization responded by using digital channels to strengthen its relationship with fans one interaction at a time.
During a fireside chat at Digital Summit Raleigh, Melanie Deziel sat down with Matt Sutor, Chief Marketing Officer of the Carolina Hurricanes to explore how that approach has evolved into a broader strategy for building loyalty. While sports naturally inspires passionate fandom, Sutor's lessons extend well beyond the arena. Brands in any industry can create deeper relationships when they think beyond what they sell and consider the community and experiences they can create around it.
When hockey paused in 2020, the Hurricanes could no longer rely on games, scores, or the in-person experience to drive engagement. Sutor's team responded by changing how the brand communicated with fans.
Instead of talking at them, they started talking with them.
Social content became more conversational, sometimes beginning with something as simple as asking fans how they were doing. Those interactions helped create one-to-one relationships at a moment when people were actively looking for connection, and they established a tone the organization has maintained even as fans returned to the arena.
Today, that philosophy extends across social media, SMS, the Hurricanes app, and other digital touchpoints. The goal is to make fans feel valued for the role they play in the community rather than simply the money they spend on tickets or merchandise.
As Sutor explained, the organization wants every fan to walk away feeling, "I matter."
One of the most interesting aspects of the Hurricanes' marketing strategy is that the organization does not exclusively target hockey fans.
Raleigh attracts people from cities with deeply established sports loyalties. Someone who has spent a lifetime cheering for the Rangers or Bruins is unlikely to abandon that identity simply because they moved to North Carolina.
The Hurricanes instead consider what else those people enjoy. They look at concertgoers, brewery visitors, tailgaters, and people searching for ways to become part of their new community.
That thinking influences everything down to the imagery used in advertising. A campaign might feature a player celebrating a goal, but the frame intentionally includes fans behind the glass experiencing that moment with him. The team is selling hockey, but it is also selling the feeling of being there.
For marketers in any industry, the same principle can reveal new audiences. Your next customer may connect with the experience surrounding your product before developing an attachment to the product itself.
Sutor also encouraged marketers to reconsider where they look for inspiration. His team maintains advertising and social inspiration channels, yet much of what they share comes from brands outside of sports.
Looking beyond direct competitors creates space for different ideas, but it also helps the team recognize stories within its own organization that might otherwise seem ordinary.
A player getting his skates sharpened, a longtime fan preparing for a tailgate, or a behind-the-scenes look at a player's life away from the rink may feel routine to someone who works in hockey. To a fan, that access can be fascinating.
As Sutor put it, what is mundane to your organization may be incredibly interesting to your audience.
The Hurricanes are applying that philosophy through behind-the-scenes storytelling designed to humanize players and give fans access they cannot get elsewhere. These stories may sit outside the team's core product of wins and losses, but they give audiences new reasons to connect with the people and culture surrounding the organization.
Community can feel difficult to quantify, but the Hurricanes look for repeat behaviors that demonstrate a relationship is deepening.
A first-time ticket buyer returning for another game matters. A customer purchasing directly from the Hurricanes' store again matters. Fans repeatedly using the app, ordering food at games, engaging with content, or eventually becoming season ticket members all provide evidence that an initial interaction is turning into something more meaningful.
Looking across those behaviors also exposes gaps. A season ticket member who rarely uses the app or purchases merchandise has a different relationship with the organization than someone engaging across multiple touchpoints.
The objective is to understand where each person sits in that relationship and identify the next experience that could bring them closer to the brand. Loyalty becomes less about a single conversion and more about creating reasons for someone to keep coming back.
Diehard fans are rarely created through a single campaign or transaction. Loyalty develops through a series of experiences that make people feel recognized, included, and connected to something they want to be part of.
The Carolina Hurricanes may have the advantage of a passionate sports environment, but the larger lesson applies to every marketer. When brands understand the experience they provide beyond the product, invite customers into the conversation, and consistently give them reasons to return, they create something much more valuable than an audience.
They create a community.
Watch the Full Session
This article was adapted from the live session Fireside Chat: Beyond the Ice — How the Carolina Hurricanes Build a Winning Fan Experience presented by Matt Sutor, Carolina Hurricanes at the Raleigh Digital Summit 2025
Watch the full video: https://resource.digitalsummit.com/resources/material/beyond-the-ice-ral25/