MLB Breaking Ad Campaign With "This is Beyond Baseball" Tag Line

MLB's New Multi-Media Ad Campaign Is League's Largest Ever

MLB this week will open the ’09 season by breaking its first new tag line in three years: “This is Beyond Baseball,” according to Terry Lefton in this week’s SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. MLB Senior VP & CMO Jacqueline Parkes indicated that the multi-media ad campaign is the league’s “largest ever, with MLB rights holders slated to dedicate the equivalent of $65[M] in asset media to the campaign over the course of the season.” MLB’s ad agency, McCann-Erickson, “assisted with the work, which grew out of research that showed the bonds -- on and off the field -- that baseball fans have for the game.” Parkes: “Consumers kept playing back to us that the game is a part of our lives and connects them in a way that is ownable only by baseball.” Twenty ads “will run nationally on MLB rights holders Fox, ESPN, TBS and the MLB Network, and locally on broadcasts of MLB teams’ rights holders.” More than 10 spots “will focus on star players,” starting with Giants P Tim Lincecum and Phillies 1B Ryan Howard. The “Beyond Baseball” campaign follows MLB’s “I Live For This” campaign, which dates back six seasons and was preceded by “What a Game” (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 4/6 issue).