Superstars in Underpants

I didn’t know whether to laugh or wince when I saw this. So I did both.

OK, I admit it: It’s funny. The sliding entrances, the gyrating on the couch, the utter lack of rhythm and grace from such talented men…I had to laugh. And so will lots of other people. Millions, even. Everyone loves it on youtube. So it works, right?

For Guitar Hero, yes. For the athletes? No.

I loved Risky Business. Bash Tom Cruise all you want; the movie was a generation definer (“Sometimes, you’ve just got to say ‘What the f*ck.’”) So I appreciated the parody.

But it was made 25 years ago, which makes it a decade older than Guitar Hero’s teen target. So are these megastar athletes being used well? You could say they’re capturing the youth market and showing their silly sides. I’d argue that’s what Saturday Night Live is for.

So much goes into choosing endorsers to represent a brand, because there’s so much at stake. Money, of course, but even more important is the athlete’s brand. How the people who they need to influence perceive them. How they connect to the right target in the right manner.

I’m not sure why Guitar Hero picked these four athletes. I suppose if you have the cash to gather this collection of talent, it would be cool. Good for Guitar Hero.

But for these athletes, just doing something “cool” doesn’t cut it. Doing something that works for them is more important. I could feel Phelps’ discomfort and A-Rod’s forced enjoyment. Kobe, I give credit for going all out. He’s a crazy man out there. But he got to wear longer boxers, so he didn’t look as silly. And I’d much rather see him jump a car. That at least connects to his basketball chops.

When it comes to sports and advertising, how you put athletes and brands together is crucial to both.

That’s why I liked Tony Hawk in this spot. It fits his offbeat sport and character. It fits his brand. And I loved the helmet.

But I still ask, “Why these guys?” Four elite athletes, a young target, an old movie, and the suggestion to “Release your inner rock star.”

If I were their agents, I’d release these guys from their contract with Guitar Hero. Would you?

Hey Tiger Woods: Padraig Harrington has your mojo

Padraig Harrington isn’t just the best golfer in the world right now; he’s also the coolest golfer in the world in the world right now.

No, he’s not holing Rubiks Cubes from 15 feet away. That would be Tiger Woods, who, although injured, is smart enough to heed the old adage of “Out of sight, out of mind.” He also knows that he’ll never make as much money playing golf as he will make from his endorsements, so keeps up on the ad front. Hence the latest from EA Sports.



Pretty fun, I’ll grant you that, and in a world where where “Is it real?” viral videos are cropping up more often than interceptions in Jets games, it ranks right up there. Not for technical wizardry, but as proof that Tiger can do still some pretty wonderful things, injured or not. The story has it that it took him only two takes. Probably explains why he was so psyched when it went in, since I’m guessing they told him he’d be done once he sank one.

So Tiger is still around, and the world hasn’t collapsed. It’s just become a much better place for the quiet, confident, Mr. Harrington, a native of Ireland and a man who prefers ridiculously hard work over the luck of the Irish.

I was once at a tournament to interview him for a video. We had to wait until after his round to shoot him, but he had putted poorly that day so he stopped at the putting green after he finished and practiced his putting…and practiced...and practiced…while it got darker and colder. He was still on the green while his competitors were on their third beer.

He still gave us all the time we needed, and while his performance was just North of lackluster, he was very honest and real.

Those qualities help explain the latest news on Padraig: He just re-signed with Wilson to endorse their golf clubs. It pays him a lot of money, but it was millions short of what we could have made had he switched to any of the new companies that were courting him. But he’s been with Wilson for many years, they’ve worked side by side with him in developing his equipment, and he felt loyalty to the company that’s had a hand in his success.

They both work ridiculously hard, they both have had tremendous success recently, and while Tiger can marry Swedish knockouts and play golf on the moon, Padraig carries his own kind of authentic cool. Sometimes that’s the best kind.

Obama or Phillies-Rays; which is the lesser of two evils?

That headline may be misleading: I don't think Barack Obama is evil. In fact, I’m not going to offer any political views in this blog. I’m with those that believe that except in extreme cases (Go Tommie Smith! Go John Carlos!), it's not ok to mix Sports with politics. Although I do find it kind of fun when athletes become Congressmen. (Go Bill Bradley! Go Steve Largent!)

These days, Sports has not just been a nice escape from our economic woes, it’s been a good place to turn to get away from the nonstop political chatter. I’ve had just about enough political advertising, haven’t you?

Too bad. Judging from the record $150 million Barack Obama raised in September alone, we’re going to be seeing a lot more of his very confident mug on the tube.

One place we know he’ll be, at the tune of $1 million, is on Fox before Game Six of the World Series next Wednesday night. Not just an ad, but a 30 minute infobamafest. 30 MINUTES. You can get through a whole inning in 30 minutes. Sometimes, even an inning and a half!

And the most incredible part: Major League Baseball is going to delay the start of the game, originally planned for 8:22 EST, 15 minutes so he can have the solid 8-8:30 block of time on Fox and other networks, creating a media roadblock that you just can’t avoid.

To point out the obvious ironies of this Barackomercial: The 30 minutes of BO is being aired on Fox, which isn’t known to be a bastion of happiness for Democrats. The program he’s pre-empting is the World Series. And as popular as football may be, we don’t sing “Football, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet,” and we don’t call football “The National Pastime.” It’s still baseball, if I’m not mistaken. And baseball is still kind of sacred. Hello, Mr. double digit lead in the polls? Maybe you’d like to stomp on an American flag and sing the Star Spangled banner with Roseanne Barr? And while you’re at it, why don’t you piss off a real significant number of people and pre-empt a half hour on Regis and Kelly too?

But the biggest irony of all is, with the marquee matchup of the Phillies and Rays, the ratings could actually go down once the game starts.

Ba-dump-dump.

Meanwhile, rumors have it John McCain isn’t going anywhere near the Fall Classic. He’s sticking to safer venues that don’t mess with our great country, airing his long format spots on English Premier League games on Setanta Sports.

I’m Rocco Baldelli, and I approved this message.

The NFL, the economy, and the wonderful ridiculousness of Sports

While this posting may seem to contradict my last, it doesn’t. Because in sports, as in real life, absurdity is rampant. This is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt when an expansion team makes it to the World Series after ten years while a wonderfully storied team waits ten times as long. But I digress.

The economy’s bad, right? Markets are down, the government’s going socialist, and we’re all pretty much doomed financially. Tell that to the 66,000 apparently flush souls who’ll be in attendance at Super Bowl XLIII. According to the LA Times, Super Bowl tickets for the first time "will have a four-figure face value -- $1,000 for a single seat to Super Bowl XLIII at Raymond James Stadium" in Tampa, Florida.

That’s right. Face value tickets going for a cool grand, and this isn’t even the Granddaddy of them all. This is that game that’s painfully long and usually lopsided.

Sorry if I don’t get it. I’ve been to the Super Bowl. Yes, it’s awesome. But most of the awesomeness comes in the days before the game. Concerts, parties, the hospitality…that IS the show. The game is pretty anticlimactic.

But at the same time, the game is also a Wonder. It’s a Bucket Lister. It’s quite possibly the single biggest annual event in our country. According to The LA Times, “the average cost of tickets to last season's Super Bowl was more than $4,000 in the secondary markets.” You can buy a Super Bowl RING for four thousand dollars.

So economy be damned. And this year will be no different. In fact, this year, prices will be higher, due solely to one man. No, not Manning or Portis or Ware.

Springsteen.

The world’s most telling economic indicator: Sports

Sports has been a constant through times of tragedy and war. So it’s fascinating to come to a point in the road where Sports’ winning streak as the undisputed outlet for folks to turn to in tough times hitting a pretty significant bump.

In last Tuesday’s WSJ, Matthew Futterman reported that Sports is taking a hit in this terrible economy. “As Economy Weakens, Sports Feel a Chill” is the headline.

The most telling quote came from Brett Yormark, the chief executive of the New Jersey Nets. “We’re not just competing for people’s entertainment dollars anymore. We’re going up against milk and orange juice.”

And he doesn’t mean OJ Simpson.

I’ve never been hugely tapped in to the world of economics. Most of my experience with numbers comes from reading box scores and doing the stats for Michigan football broadcasts in the early 1980’s. So as this economic crisis has unfolded, I’ve shared the horror of losing a lot of money, but mostly from the sidelines; no less horrified, but certainly not massively informed.

It’s a story like this that hits home for me. And I’d bet that’s true for millions of others.

What to do? Well, in a time when business sucks all over, uncertainty reigns, and folks have a moment of painful hesitation when they pull out their wallets, you could turn to sports as the ultimate escape. As the eminently quotable Mr. Yomark says, “We’ve never sold wins and losses. We sell hope and fun.”

Unfortunately, those tickets costs as much as a few meals at a decent restaurant for my family of four. It’s a conundrum and for us hard core sports fans, a true indication of the current economic malaise.

For now, I’m thankful for HD.

MLB needs Tim Donaghy

I’ve figured out a way for Major League Baseball to increase their viewership (and therefore, their advertising dollars) for the playoffs, from the Division Series through the World Series.

The way I see it, there are two problems: Teams and times. Every year, there are teams that people aren’t all that interested in watching, and games played when people aren’t all that interested in watching. Unless you really have a hankering to see a Phillies-Rays World Series game that hits the seventh inning around midnight.

I’ve been watching, and these League Championship Series are both pretty good. Four teams hitting their groove when it’s important to play well. The only thing that’s been annoying has been the same crappy commercials aired over and over. Note to advertisers: you’ll stand out in a big way if you can put a decent ad on the air.
So the quality of play is good. But people still aren’t flocking to Fox.

Maybe it’s because we’re powerless to do anything other than just watch the games play out, hope that our teams win, and trust that the networks and cable companies show the games at reasonable times.

This is where Tim Donaghy would come in. If MLB would hire him as an ump—even if it was just for the playoffs--he could work his magic, fix a couple of games, assert his influence on a few of his new umpire friends, and make sure things happen the way they really should happen. For example, how hard could it be to make the right (or wrong) calls to help the Cubs advance? It’s what everyone wants, right? Who wouldn’t want to see a Cubs-Red Sox World Series? Would it not be worth the little bit of active rule avoidance it would take to make it happen?

Think about it for next year, MLB. Or keep those same honest umps, and have the Padres and Blue Jays with a 8 PM EST start. Or you can have Tim Donaghy, the Cubs and Yankees, and gajillions more dollars in revenue.

Please?

Guerillas at the sports marketing gates

On October 1 The Vancouver Sun reported that VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games) will spend $40 million “buying up every major supply of major advertising space throughout” greater Vancouver, reflecting VANOC’s commitment to the IOC to “sew up all advertising locations for Games sponsors and prevent so-called “ambush marketing” by non-sponsors” during the 2010 Games.

Makes sense. Those official sponsors spent enormous amounts of money to be able to merchandise the Games to their full extent. Over the years, the stories of non-Officials, especially Nike, maneuvering to appear connected to the Olympics, are many and memorable, and it’s not unreasonable for the Officials to get massively pissed off.

But I say, hail the Guerillas.

In sports or in marketing, being on top of your game takes clever thinking and originality, and more than anything else, adaptability. If you can’t run the ball, go to the play action. If you can’t win with homers, go small ball. And if you lose the bidding war (or choose not to bid) to be an Olympic sponsor, find another way in.
Nike famously did just that in Atlanta in 1996, buying up spots on Olympic themed programming, as well blanketing outdoor advertising all over the city. Reebok paid the big bucks, but Nike got the credit. And plenty of press, to boot.

The other very memorable example of Olympic sponsorship and corporate skullduggery took place in 1992, when members of the Dream Team, including Michael Jordan, used American flags to cover up the Reebok logos on their warm-ups. There’s a lot to the story, of course, from millions of dollars in retail purchases at stake, to the fact that consent forms weren’t presented to the players until they were on the plane bound for the Games.

Did MJ and his Nike brothers use the stars and bars as pashminas because they felt loyal to their corporate parent, or because they were trying to protect their own financial interests? Probably some of both. They’re smart guys and very good businessmen, especially MJ.

There’s no easy answer. But these days, when money’s tight all over, if there’s a way to be smarter than the next guy, spend less money, and get more credit and exposure, I say, Go for it. Go guerilla.

Try as they may, the Cubs still haven’t made me an atheist

A friend told me that after the Cubs went down meekly in Game 2 of the NLDS, he peeked into the bedroom of his 11 year old son and his kid’s eyes were red from crying. I can only imagine how that child feels right now. After this season of promise. After so much expectation. After investing so much emotional capital.

This one really hurts.

That’s the thing about sports. People care so damn deeply. And that’s why it’s such an effective tool to use in marketing.

There’s politics and there’s religion, each of which engenders some pretty strong beliefs and adherence. But I’d bet you that other than folks who work day to day to get their guy elected, there are very few people who suffer through sleepless nights after their candidate loses. And that’s when the decision affect four years! We get another chance next year to try to win again. Then again, us Cubs fans have been saying that for…well, 100 years now.

And religion? Many would tell you that the Cubs/Celtics/Red Wings/Redskins/Arsenal IS their religion.

The emotions involved in sports are wonderful and magical and horrible. So when you can harness those emotions and leverage an insight into them, you can create something powerful.

If I were a marketer right now, I’d think about using Manny Ramirez. I know he has his shtick. But he’s on top of the world, for now.

The Cubs sure could have used him.

Major League baseball took away my sleep

But I was not alone.

Along with dozens of Major League Baseball executives, hundreds of network and cable tv programmers, and of course, millions of Cubs (and Red Sox) fans around the world, I barely slept last night.

I know, one night does not a post season make. But that’s the optimistic view. Maybe my brethren in Beantown, who saw their team make the most amazing comeback in playoff history, slept a little easier.

But when you’re a lifelong, diehard Cubs fan, last night felt like certain death. It makes winning on the road necessary, which the Cubs didn’t do all that well this season. It makes today’s outing from the twitchy, bothered, horribly unpredictable Carlos Zambrano the most important game of his career.

It makes for a very long Thursday.

And of course, there’s Bud Selig, being congratulated by hordes of Yankee-haters and Brewer-lovers about the newfound parity in the Big Leagues. Eight playoff teams, four from big markets, four from smaller markets (Hey New York: How many teams do you have in the playoffs? Love, Chicago and LA).

And while he trumpets the wonderful equalizing of the Major Leagues, Bud Selig is spending extra time in Synagogue praying that the Brewers, Phillies, and Rays get summarily dismissed faster than you can see plummeting ratings. Trust me, he has visions of the Cubs and some version of the Sox dancing in his head come October 22.

I foresee many more sleepless nights.