Comedian David Allan Grier, of "In Living Color" fame,
will star in the Heat's new ad campaign to promote season
ticket sales. Grier will film a series of four commercials
in Miami-Dade tomorrow. In the spots, which are parodies of
cable shopping networks, Grier will serve as host of the
"Heat Shopping Channel" and will hawk items like a
basketball arena seat, a piece of the playing floor and a
bottle of a basketball player's sweat (Heat). In Ft.
Lauderdale, Alan Snel puts production costs for the spots at
$250,000 and notes that the Heat "will need to sell more
tickets" when they move into AmericanAirlines Arena, since
it has 6,000 more seats than Miami Arena. Joe Zubi, Exec VP
of FL-based Zubi Advertising, the Heat's agency, said that
he "expects" the team to spend "hundreds of thousands of
dollars" on media buys, which are "mostly local slots" on
NBA playoff game broadcasts on NBC, TNT and TBS. The ads
will run throughout the playoffs and "resume in the fall" at
the start of the '99-2000 NBA season. Zubi, on the
campaign: "It's going to be hysterical" (SUN-SENTINEL, 5/7).
