Mid-July, And MLB Launches Post-Season Marketing

Major League Baseball is launching its earliest-ever post-season marketing push today, timed with the national broadcast of the 2007 MLB All-Star Game at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

The effort, "There's Only One October," stars comedian Dane Cook, who will talk about baseball's post-season highlights and run down teams and players lined up for October games in TV ads.

In the TV spots, via McCann-Erickson, Cook reviews regular-season events leading to post-season games. MLB and post-season partners Fox and TBS will also do collaborative post-season marketing, with Fox and TBS running the spots tailored to each network.

Online efforts center on user-generated content on a web site going live today, actober.com, where the slogan "You're a fan. Act like one!" explains the "a" in the URL. Ads will also run on CNN, ESPN, FX and TNT. Marketing includes print ads in Sports Illustrated and USA Today, radio spots, XM satellite and ESPN.

Actober.com will feature user-generated content, wherein people can access 60 clips of historical post-season baseball footage and cut and paste them to "actober" moments for a chance to win tickets to the 2007 World Series.

advertisement

advertisement

Tim Brosnan, executive vice president/Business for Major League Baseball, says that this campaign is the first using user-generated content as an effort to lure younger consumers, and that "Turner and Fox have made an earlier, deeper, all-in commitment to the campaign than our broadcast partners have ever made in the past."

Last year's post-season ad push starred baseball icon Tommy LaSorda, and Brosnan says Dane Cook, 45 years LaSorda's junior, will bring in a new, more web-savvy consumer.

"Dane Cook will draw a demo Tommy LaSorda wouldn't. Cook was sort of launched in that space, and he has more friends on MySpace than any other comedian in the world. He will direct an audience that is much more familiar with posting self-generated content," he says.

Next story loading loading..