It has had just two iterations to date, but "Terry Tate, Office Linebacker" already stands out as Reebok's most popular ad ever.
The first ad from The Arnell Group was the hit of this year's crop of Super Bowl ads and won a Gold Lion at the recent International Ad Festival in Cannes. Now Reebok will see if its "pain machine" can actually sell sneakers.
The first ad linking Tate to Reebok product breaks this week. With NFL camps opening next month, Tate is depicted in a training regimen that involves heaving office furniture and assaulting discourteous co-workers.
The ad is tied to the launch of Reebok's $55 Scrimmage cross-training shoe. Reebok is also launching an online sweepstakes in which the top prize is having Tate come to your office, presumably to maintain workplace discipline and eradicate anyone wearing Nikes.
Reebok is wary of overexposure for its latest brand icon, opting for personal appearances at big events like the Boston Marathon, where in April Tate used a stamp to imprint "The Pain Train Is Coming" on various body parts of hundreds of more-than-willing spectators.
"We want to give him a good, long life with us," said Jo Harlow, vice president of worldwide marketing.
Tate has also made appearances at retailers, at a recent Reebok gathering of stock analysts and at last week's Willowbend Pro-Am Children's Charity Golf Tournament on Cape Cod, where he showed that his hitting skills are more suited to the football field than the links.
AND 1, 2, 3, 4: Basketball sneaker and apparel brand And 1 breaks a quartet of new spots in July.
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| And 1 bases its Drive Mid campaign in the heart of playground hoops. |
Work that is some of And 1's most genuine to date gets to the heart of the matter: playground basketball and the ballers who make it a spectacle.
Thus it's a gaggle of And 1 endorsers, including Ricky Davis, Rafer "Skip to My Lou" Alston and Tyrone "Alimoe" Evans, all of whom get their own ads. Filmed on an asphalt court at 145th Street and Lennox Avenue in Harlem, the spots are pushing the $90 Drive Mid sneaks, but none of the spots makes the usual mistake of excess adulation for the athletes or the kicks.
"We tried to keep these simple," said ad director Mike Frame. "Just guys playing ball in the summer."
The ads open with a locator shot drawing viewers in to the inner-city locale and end with a nifty effect that shows the shoe spinning first on a player's foot and then spinning on its own. The campaign will run July 7 to Aug. 3 on BET and ESPN, with supporting print in Slam, Source, ESPN and XXL.
BUDDING RELATIONSHIP: Anheuser-Busch has one of the broadest portfolios of sports marketing properties on the planet, but it has never included Formula One racing. That's about to change.
Sources say the King of Beers is a few weeks from announcing an eight-figure-a-year associate-level sponsorship of the Williams Racing BMW F1 team. Sources said Anheuser-Busch has been looking for an F1 investment since January and was hoping for a deal with the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro team, especially since the team's red color scheme matches that of Bud. However, some sentiment remaining from the many years of Philip Morris' ownership of rival Miller Brewing prevented a Ferrari-Bud hookup.
Accordingly, Bud will have to put its pre-eminent red logo on the primary Williams car, which is blue and white. The sponsorship will likely be announced at the July 20 British Grand Prix.
HERE & THERE: Ken Cohn to Millsport as vice president and account director in the agency's Stamford, Conn., offices, working on Pepsi business. He was last with NASCAR, N.Y., as a senior account executive.
NBA corporate sponsorship targets for the off-season include consumer electronics and financial services, outside of payment cards, where the league's balancing act between AmEx and MBNA is one of the most impressive category divisions in the business. ... Former NFL licensing exec Mike Loparo joins VF Corp. in the premium sales department. He'll be based out of his Westport, Conn., home. ... Former And 1 marketer Jeffrey Smith to Big Daddy Apparel, Primos, Pa., as retail marketing director. ... Joann Klonowski and Dana Tenser Federman join Premier Partnerships as vice president of business development and director of marketing, respectively. Klonowski has held positions with the 1994 World Cup Tournament committee, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Cleveland Indians. Federman was last with Envision.
Terry Lefton can be reached at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
