Sports commercials - Essay Example

Sports Commercials The first advertisement that I believe is very effective in terms of marketing is the MLB’s “I Live For This” campaign. There are two different versions of this ad, but they both capture the interest of the viewer in dissimilar ways. The first ad contains Derek Jeter, who talks about the emotions he feels when he plays baseball in front of his fans. In the ad, Jeter mentions the thrill he gets when his fans cheer for him. The purpose of this ad is to try and connect Jeter with his fans and encourage them to follow the MLB even more.

Slightly different from this ad, the second ad uses Laura, a normal everyday fan of the Cardinals. She talks about the emotions that she feels when she watches the St. Louis Cardinals play. She uses key adjectives like “a sea of red,” and also how the city “comes to life.” Furthermore, Laura describes her feelings when the national anthem starts. The purpose of this is to try and connect baseball with those people who are patriotic. The underlying message is that fans of baseball are also very proud of their country.

The next advertisement that is very successful in its marketing strategy is the Adam Oates NHL commercial. This advertisement is clever because it involves sexuality in the form of a woman to provoke thought. The ad uses phrases like “patrols the offensive zone,” and “loose rebounds” to compare hockey with picking up a date. This is clever on the part of the advertisers because they make hockey seem fashionable to the viewing public by contrasting scoring on the hockey field with scoring on the dating front.

The final advertisement that I found to really hit the mark was the “NBA Cares” campaign, which contained three different ads. In the first two ads, a vast number of professional basketball players plead with the audience to help contribute to those in need. This strategy generally works because the audience likes to think that, by helping the cause, they are on the same level as their role models. The third ad combined the use of star power with everyday fans to get its message across. This strategy is very effective because the audience sees their stars as normal people like them.

On the other hand, I felt that the 2008 MLB All Star commercial was not as compelling as it should have been. The focus of the ad was on the last All Star game at the old Yankee Stadium. It would have been better if the stadium had been shown a bit more considering that the ad was mostly about the stadium. Instead, the ad had many scenes from around New York City. But, unless you have been to New York before, you are unlikely to recognize anything. The final ad that I thought was not really effective was the Expect Great ad by Candice Parker.

This ad used satire to humor its audience. Parker started out by saying that “you couldn’t pay me to watch women’s basketball.” Even though this is only tongue-and-cheek, it focuses on the negative stereotypes that many people already have towards women’s basketball. Towards the end of the ad, the words “she wouldn’t say that” appear on the screen. However, by that time many people could already be in agreement with what Parker was originally saying. This advertisement is trying to be effective by mocking those who dislike the WNBA, but in reality, it only reconfirms what a majority of people already think.