For the past five years, Delaware North has been using the billboard at Delaware and Chippewa to celebrate the community and Buffalo culture. The billboard is across from company headquarters and above Spot Coffee.
Past billboards have been focused on the Bills, the St. Patrick’s Day parade, the Turkey Trot, among others.
The company's creative team might have outdone itself with this recent addition.
Top 3 Hard Things to Say:
1. I was wrong
2. I need help
3. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen
The reference, of course, is to the Sabres goalie who is almost universally known by his initials, UPL, partly because of the challenge of pronouncing his name.
As noted by a Sabres fan, television analyst Darren Pang recently just referred to him as "Ukka" for part of a game.
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The billboard effort is led by Lindsay Truesdell, the company's director of partnership marketing. The concept and design were a team effort among Rachelle Cizdziel (marketing specialist), Maggie Yanko (copywriter) and Crystal Herberger (graphic designer) from Delaware's North in-house creative studio.
"We aim to use the billboard to celebrate our community and tap into anything that’s particularly timely or unique," Truesdell said Thursday. "In this case, the sense of excitement around the Sabres and their playoff push is a hot topic, so we wanted to put a playful spin on it and highlight one of their talented young players."
