Marketing vs. Politics

The Los Angeles Times posted a photo essay on its website highlighting the similarities between the movie marketing business and the business of campaign politics.  They used Barack Obama’s campaign as their case study.  They write:

Getting elected to the White House is a lot like opening a Hollywood blockbuster these days. And nowhere is that more in evidence than Barack Obama’s campaign after his speech on race in America.

With the current election cycle consuming the thoughts and dreams of a great majority of Americans, commentators have begun bemoaning the inevitable blurring of the lines between politics and entertainment. Young people get their news from “The Daily Show,” a comedy program, and politically minded voters are putting their energies into creating Internet videos that rely more on cheesecake than issues-oriented slogans.

Some pundits are calling Obama’s race relations oration the most defining speech of his campaign. However, it’s the Obama media blitz that has followed that is most reminiscent of Tom Cruise’s or Denzel Washington’s pre-movie release talk show rounds.

They go on to highlight Obama’s surprise visit to Saturday Night Live, making time for the talk shows (like the Tyra Banks Show) and his ability to “Move the Merch” (translation: sell t-shirts and stuff) and seven other overlapping strategies.

What the LA Times doesn’t note, however, is that the Obama campaign has actually been more successful than Hollywood at engaging people and mobilizing them to action.  All the candidates have been really.  A movie ticket only (only!) costs you $10 and requires a commitment of 90 minutes, but Hollywood still can’t get a major blockbuster to stay on top of the charts for more than a couple of weeks.  The Obama campaign has millions of people donating $25, $50 and $100 at a time (several times over) and spending hours making phone calls, knocking on doors, and similar.  And he is doing it in a more challenging environment — talking about serious issues like healthcare and war and race.

The reason for the success: It is not because he is a ‘rock star’ (though that doesn’t hurt) or because he goes on the Daily Show.  His success is the result of his substance — its because he’s talking about the issues that people care about, the things that impact our daily lives.  All the candidates are… maybe not enough, or in enough detail, but Senator Obama and the others are all talking about issues.  And that’s what we want, that is the key to success - understanding what the audience wants to hear about and delivering on their expectations.  It’s a tough time in America, the economy is slowing, the war is dragging on, people are concerned and looking for answers.  In hollywood terms, he has a better script, a more interesting plot.

Hollywood should pay attention to the Obama campaign, and politics in general.  If they can start to relate their work more closely to the serious issues that impact people’s lives — and if they can do it well (and seriously and authentically the way political candidates are doing it) they might just see the kind of interest that Seantor Obama and other political candidates are enjoying transferring over to blockbuster movies again as well.

Age of Conversation

Today marks the official release date of “Age of Conversation.”

What is that? It is a collaborative effort of 103 bloggers and online types – a book that we all co-wrote and are now beginning the effort to co-market.  It is also an experiment in distributed media, a test of whether a group is really more powerful than the individual.  The goal was painfully simple:

- Pull 100 authors together on a single project 
- The overriding topic was “The Conversation Age” — where you take it is up to you.
- The items are short - one 8.5″ x 11″ page — it can be words, diagrams, photos (again up to you).  If it is words - about 400, give or take a couple.
- We write it quickly and get it out there. We publish electronically.
- We make it available online for a small fee and we donate 100% of the proceeds to Variety the Children’s Charity — which serves children across the entire globe

It all started with an off-handed remark on a blog post and grew from there.  The credit for both launching and facilitating the project goes entirely to the editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McClellan.  I have never met either, but I was honored and flattered that they would let me participate.

All signs in this suggest that this crazy little experiment will be an overwhelming success… Age of Conversation is an interesting book and will get significant attention, hopefully driving good sales. 

More information, and the option to puchase the book, is available at www.ageofconversation.com.  Go buy a copy!

Why Jet Blue’s Apology Works

I am a JetBlue customer.  I am also a fan.  But, I admit that when the airline initially fumbled the customer service and public relations challenges that followed the snow/ice storm that whacked the East coat on Valentines Day (is it cliche to call it a ‘Valentines Day Massacre?’), I thought the airline was doomed.  You see it all the time — a company screws-up, the press jumps all over them, customers start gravitating to a competitor — and a few months later a little notice appears in the media saying that the company filed for bankrupty.

This won’t kill JetBlue.  In fact, I think the airline will come back even stronger than before and their response to this communications disaster will drive significant changes in the entire airline industry. 

What worked?  First, the very same issue that led to JetBlue’s troubles during the storm — their small size, and relatively thin management structure — played a key role in their recovery.  If JetBlue had acted like most companies and issued a press statement or used a PR firm to offer an apology to customers, it would have fallen flat.  When David Neeleman, JetBlue’s Founder and CEO, went on a personal apology tour through the media and talked directly to customers online (through the JetBlue website and even on YouTube) it came across as genuine, sincere, and personal.  Watch the video - it is obvious that Mr. Neeleman hasn’t slept in days, is taking the responsibility and stress of the crisis very personally.  Nobody wants the man to suffer, but it is nice to know that a CEO isn’t shielding himself from tough times when customers are up in arms.

Second, they took swift and decisive action.  Lots of companies promise to fix problems when a crisis hits.  Usually the investigation into what went wrong takes a few months.  Then a few more months pass before any real changes are announced.  The public forgets what really caused the problem and the impact that the changes a company makes are hardly noticeable.  Not at JetBlue — their new Customer Bill of Rights was issued within days of the crisis, while emotions were still high over the delays and inconveniences.  In today’s fast-moving media environment, where news travels very quickly and the attention-span of the average person is very short, JetBlue was able to put into place a plan for real change while their audience was still paying attention.

The way JetBlue responded to this crisis — in the media, to their customers, online, by making the necessary changes to their structure and policies quickly — probably saved the airline.  We all know that weather will always cause problems for airline companies.   But while I think we all gave up on most of the major airlines long ago when it comes to supporting us as customers when these situations hit, JetBlue has earned itself at least one more chance to prove that its model, and customer-focused philosophy, can and does work.  I think it does work and I look forward to flying JetBlue again (in March, I am heading down to Austin, TX — a direct flight from Boston!) so I can show my support.

Superbowl Weekend Reading

(I will be part of a team of experts organized by the Boston Ad Club offering thoughts on the Superbowl advertising this weekend.  Some of our comments will be posted on the Boston Ad Club’s Superbowl Advertising Blog.  This post also appears there).

The weekend of the big game has finally arrived!  The Ad Club has pulled together a crack team of advertising and marketing experts to offer comments on the advertising that will play on Super Sunday.  We are making final preparations, reviewing our play book, stretching out, etc.  What’s my role?  I will offer insights and thoughts into the use of new media in relation to the advertising. 

To help set the tone for my part of the conversation, I have pulled together a quick list of articles from the past two weeks about the role that New Media will play in this giant advertising spectacle.  Here is a little weekend reading for you:

New York Times: Colts and Bears and Kevin Federline (February 2, 2007) 

Key excerpt: “Now, thanks to the Internet, Super Bowl commercials are like gifts that Madison Avenue tries to keep on giving. As soon as the game ends, video clips of the spots are posted online, on the Web sites of sponsors like fedex.com; the networks that broadcast the game like cbs.sportsline.com; and Internet media companies, among them ifilm.com, msn.foxsports.com, sports.aol.com and youtube.com.”

ClickZ: A Level Playing Field for Superbowl Ads (February 2, 2007)

Key excerpt: “This year, advertisers buying spots during Super Bowl XLI are frequently posting those ads online before they’re broadcast to try and create buzz. And one group of self-proclaimed “Web 2.0″ companies has formed to create spots that ride the wave of Super Bowl advertising — without actually advertising in the Super Bowl.  Knowing they couldn’t afford a standard Super Bowl ad, six start-up firms challenged each other to come up with Super Bowl-style :30 spots and upload them to a YouTube channel at SuperDotComAds XLI.”

iMedia Connection: Make Sure Your Website is Ready! (February 1, 2007)

Key excerpt: “Almost one third (30 percent) [of people surveyed] will visit the company’s website, and that same number (31 percent) will look for the ad online to view again. Marketers should make it easy for these people to find the ad by giving it a prominent position on their corporate website homepage. Without providing this kind of easy access to the advertisement, marketers will risk losing visitors to those sites clearly dedicated to Super Bowl advertising, such as Google Video or AOL. Along with providing access to the TV ad, these online destinations also provide message boards, voting and other community features.”

AdWeek: Snickers to Extend 30 Second Spot Online (January 30, 2007)

Key excerpt: “Masterfoods plans to extend the life of its 30-second Snickers Super Bowl spot via a microsite that will feature player reactions to the commercial and alternate endings. Up to three such endings will be posted, along with the version that will run during the game…. Masterfoods declined to provide the full spot before the game but a clip of the first five seconds is viewable on the microsite, www.SnickersSatisfies.com, which went live today.”

Washington Post: $2 Million Airtime, $13 Ad (January 31, 2007)

Key excerpt: “The YouTube Effect has crept into television’s mightiest showcase for advertising: the Super Bowl. For the first time, viewers of the biggest football game of the year, Sunday’s Super Bowl XLI on CBS between the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears, will see at least four ads that were created by amateurs, rather than by high-end ad agencies. For advertisers, consumer-created content is a cost-savings bonanza. Advertisers are paying more than $2.6 million for the most expensive 30-second spot in this year’s Super Bowl, up from $2.5 million last year. Just to produce a top-level 30-second ad can easily cost more than $1 million. A commercial produced by an amateur, by comparison, can be had for the price of a plane ticket and a trip to the game for the winner and some post-production cleanup for the ad itself.  For the ad creators, it’s a shot at the big time and an end run around traditional barriers to appearing on advertising’s biggest stage. Indeed, it could be a career starter — more than 90 million viewers are expected to tune in to the Super Bowl.”

And a few more…

Ad Age: Measuing Bowl ROI?  Good Luck (January 29, 2007)

Survey: Sports Marketers Choose New Media Over Superbowl Advertising (January 29, 2007)

ClickZ: Very Different Superbowl Predictions (January 26, 2007)

MarketWatch: Moving the ball, beyond the Super Bowl broadcast (January 29, 2007)

Wall Street Journal: In Web Polls of Super Bowl Ads, Now A Word From the Sponsor’s Sponsor (January 29, 2007)

These are just a sampling of the articles that are out there.  But, I think you get a sense that the media is thinking the use of new media may just be the biggest story around the Superbowl advertising bonanza this year.

What are you thinking?

- By Brian Reich.  Brian is the Director of New Media for Cone Inc.

Marketing Around Moms

What does it say about our marketing culture when the most effective way to sell… well, anything… is to manipulate kids into pressuring their parents to make puchases they don’t feel comfortable with?  That is the underlying question in two recent articles I read, and now can’t stop thinking about.

The December 24, 2006 issue of New York Times Sunday Magazine featured a story by Peggy Orenstein, “What’s Wrong with Cinderalla?” (Times Select Subscription required), about the selling of the ‘princess culture’, most notably by companies like Disney and Mattel, who produces Barbie.  The December 5, 2006 issue of the New Yorker featured a story by Margaret Talbot, “Little Hotties,” (with thanks to the New America Foundation for posting a full version), about the growing rivalry between Mattel and M.G.A. Entertainment, a small toy company in Southern California that sells the Bratz dolls.

The articles come from very different perspectives - Orenstein is a feminist, while Talbot is more of an academic (not that those two are somehow mutually exclusive, but my point is that one is writing from a personal/political perspective while the other is offering an anthropological analysis).  Still, the two articles offer disturbing insights into the lucrative, and sometimes manipulative, world of marketing products to young children - girls in particular.  Global sales of Bratz products reached two billion dollars in 2005; sales of Barbie were higher, at three billion dollars.  Sales at Disney Consumer Products, “which started the craze six years ago by packaging nine of its female characters under one ryal rubric, have shot up to $3 billion, globally, this year, from $300 million in 2001,” writes Orenstein.  More disturbingly, there are apparently 25,000+ different princess-related products, everything from band-aids to balloons to makeover parties that little girls can use as a theme for their birthday or similar. 

How do they get those sales?

Well, they way the marketers tell it, little girls are born with the desire to wear pink and be glamorous (while boys, I presume, want to be soldiers and wrestlers?) and that desire just has to be triggered.  Consider this exerpt from a conversation Orenstein had with Andy Mooney, a former Nike executive who became head of the consumer-products division at Disney and who largely deserves credit for launching the princess craze.

The first Princess items, released with no marketing plan, no focus groups, no advertising, sold as if blessed by a fairy godmother. To this day, Disney conducts little market research on the Princess line, relying instead on the power of its legacy among mothers as well as the instant-read sales barometer of the theme parks and Disney Stores. ‘’We simply gave girls what they wanted,'’ Mooney said of the line’s success, ‘’although I don’t think any of us grasped how much they wanted this. I wish I could sit here and take credit for having some grand scheme to develop this, but all we did was envision a little girl’s room and think about how she could live out the princess fantasy. The counsel we gave to licensees was: What type of bedding would a princess want to sleep in? What kind of alarm clock would a princess want to wake up to? What type of television would a princess like to see? It’s a rare case where you find a girl who has every aspect of her room bedecked in Princess, but if she ends up with three or four of these items, well, then you have a very healthy business.'’

As you listen to the folks who sell Bratz dolls and Barbie’s - who are more geared to older young girls than the Disney products - you hear a variation on the same. 

What Bratz dolls are both contributing to and feeding on is a culture in which girls play at being “sassy” — the toy industry’s favored euphemism for sexy — and discard traditional toys at a younger age. (Girls seem to be growing out of toys earlier than boys are, industry analysts say.) Toy marketers now invoke a phenomenon called K.G.O.Y. — Kids Getting Older Younger — and talk about it as though it were a fact of modern life over which they have no control, rather than one which they have largely created. Mattel’s Scothon said, “Kids are certainly exposed to more things at earlier ages. Their scope of reference is wider. Their exposure to media is greater.” Larian told me, “Little girls are really much more sophisticated now than they used to be.”

I don’t believe it.  I don’t think every little girl is born with the desire to be a princess.  Companies like Disney and Mattel and M.G.A. make these dolls like they do and focus their marketing efforts to go right for the heart of the young girls, and not the parents, because they know that the young girls can be manipulated and the parents feel, in a lot of cases, powerless against that force.  Growing up, I manipulated my parents in the same way kids today do to get the toys, or similar, that I wanted — and though I can’t cite a specific commercial or similar, I was almost certainly motivated to do so by the shows I watched or the peer pressure I felt from other kids my age who had these tools). 

What I don’t understand - and I am not a parent, so maybe this knowledge will come with age - is why so many parents give in.  If a young child screams and yells about needing pink, Cinderalla-themed bedding, why do parents get it for them?  Would a parent give in if the child screamed and yelled about getting something dangerous, like a knife?  What kind of message does that send to the kid as they grow up?  And more importantly, if you as a parent don’t think that the princess culture is appropriate for your child, why don’t you make a more focused effort to help shape your child’s perspectives - to combat some of the millions of dollars spent on marketing to them?  I don’t think we have to keep kids away from all forms of media so they aren’t influenced by advertising, but there must be some way to teach kids how to have some perspective on what is right and wrong, what is important and not, or even what is real and what is fantasy.

It is easy for me to say, I know, and I don’t mean to criticize or editorialize on how people parent.  After reading these two articles, I feel compelled to understand more about what impact marketing and communications - in this case to parents, to kids, around products, etc. — has on our society.  I work in this industry, and while I prey on many of the same forces that the Disney’s and Mattel’s of the world do, I hope that I don’t think of all consumers as pawns in some giant game.  What types of changes can we in the marketing industry make to improve things in the future?  As a consumer - and hopefully some day a parent - what must I demand so that I retain some control in my thinking about what products are necessary?

Any thoughts?

The New Journal

The new version of the Wall Street Journal is out.  I like it!

The Wall Street Journal has always been my favorite source for business news.  I read it when I was younger and had dreams of being a stock broker or real estate investor (thankfully that was just a fad).  Over the past few years, I have come to appreciate the Journal for its marketing, technology, arts/culture, and sports coverage as well.  I mostly read it online, though I try to grab the Friday journal in hard copy so that I can enjoy the crossword puzzle over the weekend.  

The new version of the journal has a number of improvements that, in my mind, solidify its status as one of the premier publications in the nation.  In addition to more and better coverage of global business news, the Journal expanded coverage of the arts/culture, will be monitoring and summarizing news from blogs, magazines, cable, and broadcast news (showing that good information, regardless of its source, is the most important thing) and has given more space to reader letters and other comments.  Perhaps the best change of all, however, is the size.  I have always distinguished the Wall Street Journal because its size was larger than the other papers.  Now that it is smaller than the other papers, it still distinguishes itself and is easier to read/handle.  Big improvement.

I also want to give a quick pat on the back to the editors and publishers of the Journal for their effort to explain to loyal readers all the changes to the paper.  In the print version of today’s paper — and online in the form of a pdf — is a Readers’ Guide to the new Journal that offers insights into the history and decision making around the changes and explains how the reader experience will evolve over time.  New products are rolled out all the time but few companies make the effort to clearly explain why the changes were made and how users are supposed to utilize the new tools.  Its a necessary and important step to easing the anxiety that many readers surely feel in seeing something new and different all of a sudden (and other companies, particularly media companies, should take note).

Go pick up a copy of today’s new and improved Wall Street Journal and let me know what you think.

Update: AdAge has a column about the new Wall Street Journal as well.  Read what they think works and does not.

World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day.  It is an important global, political event designed to raise awareness and help address the spread of this terrible, deadly epidemic.  It is also an opportunity for companies and organizations to show off their marketing capabilities when it comes to serious issues.

Naturally, JoinRed, the innovative business and charitable effort to raise funds for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, is going all out today.  In addition to the giant billboard they unveiled along the MassPike here in Boston last week, they are being promoted on the Google home page and have released a new web video from Bono.

I’m looking around all day for other campaigns.  What are you seeing?

SRI In the Rockies: The Big Picture

I spent the weekend in Colorado Springs, CO attending SRI in the Rockies, the annual gathering of the socially responsible investment industry in the United States.  I was there to participate in a panel about online marketing and host a topic table at lunch on the same topic.  I also had an opportunity to attend some of the speeches and sessions — and learned some new things about climate change its impact on disease, micro-finance and, perhaps most interestingly, the future of the internet.

Bob Veres, an author, speaker, and one of the most influential people in the financial services industry (socially responsible or otherwise) gave a talk entitled ‘’The Next Society.’  The focus of his talk was how the world of sustainable investments has changed, and continues to evolve, and how the world is now following the lead of SRI - for the better.  He noted that a decade ago, social screens were seen as a depressant on fund performance while today, social screens are the very best way to evaluate corporate character and avoid surprises in your portfolio. 

Then he launched into a commentary on the changing nature of communications and how it relates to the tough work of changing the world.  Here are my (rough) notes:

- The media industry is in crisis.  Stories are covered and then disappear.  Stories are covered by people who don’t know much about the subject and who have a very short attention span.  The future of news will be an environment where you can access a lot more information, a lot better information, from people who know a lot more than reporters.  And it will make everything more focused, more meaningful, and more actionable.

- The web has created a hostile world for advertising.  As we move towards the web as a content delivery vehicle, corporate america will not be able to artificially create demand for their products and services.  It is harder and harder for advertisers to gain interest and traction.  That is why TV advertising is suffering and that is why the future of communications will be information/content-centric, and not marketer driven.

- We are experiencing the death of the consumer economic system.  Why?  It doesn’t relate to the issues that people actually care about most.  That has also given rise to the concept of “Life Planning.”  People are finding they don’t want more stuff.  They want more fulfillment from their lives.  How do they know? 

Ask yourself, if you had one day left to live, what would be your biggest regret?  Write down 30 goals you want to achieve this year (the first ten will be easy, the second ten more difficult, the third ten will make you did deep).  If you had all the money in the world, what would you want to do?   

- How can we change the world?  He offered two directives:

1) Operate in your zone of personal genius.  Imagine a circle, with a circle inside that, and a circle in side that.  At the center of that innermost circle is a  blue dot that represents your greatest energy, focus, and passion.  That is where we must all operate - get rid of the distractions and just work within our blue dot.

2) Hire a coach to help you get there.  They will help you put aside all of the work you do for others and help you focus on just what you need.  The coach will nag you because they will present your own goals back to you in such a compelling way that you will do for them what you can’t seem to find a way to do for yourself.

- The way we work is changing.  You are going to see most of the world’s work being done by ad hoc teams who are experts in their field and who are operating within their blue dot.  You will see corporations (who right now have office buildings filled with generalists and inefficient information flow based in hierarchy not expertise) “melt like sugar cubes in the rain.” The people who own the assets will control them - you won’t need marketers, etc.

- The internet will become the superconductor of human and financial capital.
The speech made me think.  Not sure quite yet what it all means, but rarely does a conference speech make me think like this one did, so that must mean something.

Shut Up & Run the Ads

I wrote a post yesterday discussing the marketing efforts behind Shut Up & Sing, the new documentary about the Dixie Chicks and their criticism of President Bush.  You didn’t see it?  Nobody did.  My computer froze up and I lost the text before I was able to put it up online.  Too bad — when I wrote it yesterday morning, this was a small story and my analysis looked really solid.  Now its a big story and I am late to the conversation.  Alas.

So what are people talking about?

The documentary tracks the fallout that resulted after lead singer, Natalie Maines, said she was “ashamed” that President Bush was from Texas, the Chicks’ home state.  The comment prompted a boycott of the Chicks’ music by conservatives and opened up a discussion about freedom of speech among scholars and those in the music industry.  Time passed, things died down.  But now, the documentary has brought the controversy back to the fore — and with a new twist.

A handful of media venues have refused to run advertising promoting the movie.  The LA Times covered it yesterday.  There was a story on NPR’s Weekend Edition this morning.  And the Washington Post summed it up this way:

It all started earlier this week when Weinstein submitted ads for its new Barbara Kopple documentary “Shut Up & Sing” to the broadcast networks for review by their standards and practices departments.

NBC said it “cannot accept these spots as they are disparaging to President Bush.”

CW said it “does not have appropriate programming in which to schedule this spot.”

Weinstein said: “Eureka!”

And on Thursday evening, it sent out a news release headlined:

“In an Ironic Twist of Events, NBC and the CW Television Networks Refuse to Air Ads for Documentary Focusing on Freedom of Speech.”

“It’s a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America,” bemoaned Weinstein Co. co-chairman Harvey Weinstein.

“The idea that anyone should be penalized for criticizing the president is sad and profoundly un-American,” he added.

As I see it, this hubub was not only anticipated by Harvey Weinstein and his team, it was a key part of their promotional strategy.  How else would you get coverage for a small-budget documentary film in today’s big-budget Hollywood movie promotion craziness?  We have a very tense election cycle coming to an end just two weeks from now, and a national media that is feasting on any criticism of the war, or the President, they can find.  All you had to do was light the fire. 

Of course, now the networks are in a no-win situation now — if they don’t run the ads, the press continues to cover the story (helping the movie gain traction, and the stations look selectively moral), and if they do run the ads, they look like they caved.  I think they should run the ads - networks would benefit greatly by becoming a part of the political dialogue and letting the population decide on its own.  Be fair, show ads promoting and criticizing the movie if that opportunity exists, but don’t limit one perspective from being heard because you are afraid of your audience.

Give credit to Weinstein and Co. for recognizing the opportunity to use the news cycle to promote their movie.  It is not a new strategy — MoveOn got into a similar fight with CBS around the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, and I have had clients whose online ads that venues have refused to run because of an arbitrary content standard.  In both cases press coverage resulted and the message ultimately got to the target audience. I don’t think it will work for any movie or event, but its a strategy that more organizations should understand and pursue.

Hey Tommy, I will be watching!

Major League Baseball has launched an ad campaign featuring Tommy Lasorda, former Dodgers manager and baseball ambassador, traveling the country to encourage people to watch the playoffs.  Brandweek explains:

The effort, using the theme “Real fans don’t hide in October. They celebrate it!” was created by McCann Erickson, New York. It includes three TV spots, print, radio and MLB’s most “extensive postseason online media buy,” according to a league official. Spend was put at $10 million by MLB. That includes 12% devoted to the online element, about $1.2 million.

TV will run through October during games on Fox and ESPN, as well during sports and entertainment programming on cable networks. Print includes Sports Illustrated, USA Today and Baseball America. Radio includes ESPN and XM Satellite. Internet buys include AOL, the New York Times Web site and various sports destinations.

In addition…

MLB.com will host “Tommy pages” where fans can get “tough love” advice from Tommy, send e-condolence cards to fans whose teams have been eliminated from the 2006 postseason, and download free TV brackets.

The campaign is targeted towards fans in cities where the teams did not make the playoffs.  I represent three of those cities myself — Boston (where I live), Washington, DC (where I am a season ticket holder), and Seattle (where I grew up — the Mariners remain my team of choice).  I don’t need an advertising campaign to convince me to watch the playoffs, but I applaud MLB’s efforts, and the creativity (and interactivity) that they are using to encourage others to watch.