• by Karl Greenberg , July 6, 2007

Major League Baseball sponsor MasterCard Worldwide is launching a national promo that dangles a week-long vacation with the winner's favorite MLB team next season. The "MasterCard Presents MLB Dreams" gives the winner special access to home and away games, batting practice, VIP seating and meet-and-greets with MLB legends.

MasterCard is wrapping the promo around its decade-old "Priceless" campaign with TV ads comprising a 30-second spot that broke nationally July 2 and will run through Sept. 15, with an Hispanic in-language component, in the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

As part of the effort, MasterCard will also drop 30 million inserts, distribute in-branch signage and ATM messaging, run print advertising, online banners, in-stadium promotions and VIP cardholder events at select MLB stadiums.

The company will also promote the effort with team-specific bus wraps, and billboards and postings at transportation hubs and stations in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia and Atlanta.

The "Priceless" campaign first launched in 1997 with an ad highlighting the relationship between father and son as they attended a baseball game.

Cheryl Guerin, VP/promotions and interactive at MasterCard Worldwide, says MasterCard's work with MLB in the past has included two major sponsorship platforms, MasterCard Presents Major League Baseball All-Century Team in 1999 and MasterCard Presents Major League Baseball Memorable Moments in 2002.

The new effort includes a new MasterCard Website, launching on Monday and festooned with MLB Dreams themes.

The site includes Fox Sports broadcaster Joe Buck, and it has an interactive component that lets visitors create video about their favorite teams from archived footage and then record an accompanying voiceover via phone about their favorite MLB team for a chance to win a trip to a 2007 MLB World Series game with three friends, accompanied by Buck himself. The web site is also promoted on MasterCard's priceless.com.

The most recent Priceless ad, "Living Your Dream," is about the joys of being a baseball fan and references the promotion at the end of the spot. "The overarching theme of this campaign is that MasterCard and MLB are giving fans an opportunity to win a priceless experience," says Guerin, who adds that Joe Buck will do interviews on behalf of the promotion.

"MasterCard always has several simultaneous marketing campaigns. However, none at this moment are on the scale of 'MasterCard Presents MLB Dreams'," says Guerin, who adds that MasterCard also has sponsorship agreements with the NHL, PGA TOUR, LPGA and 25 NFL teams, among other properties.

Within MLB MasterCard sponsors 17 teams, including the Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Mets, and New York Yankees.