MLB corporate sponsor Pepsi’s first baseball-themed ad of the season will employ new endorsers Alex Rodriguez and Vladimir Guerrero. The ad will break in May, with the start of Fox’s national Saturday afternoon MLB schedule.
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| The Angels’ Vladimir Guerrero and the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez, whom Pepsi signed in January, take aim at the moon over Miami. |
The commercial was shot just before spring training at the University of Miami by longtime Pepsi agency BBDO. “Stand-off‚” produced in English and Spanish, shows the American League MVPs from the past two seasons going mano a mano in a fungo-hitting contest.
Punctuated by flamenco music, the ad shows the players in full uniform, ostensibly competing for the can of Pepsi shown on a table next to home plate.
Guerrero begins the competition by rocketing a ball over the outfield wall and into the parking lot, where it breaks a windshield and sets off a car alarm. A-Rod counters with a ball that knocks out one of the light towers illuminating the nocturnal scene.
Finally, Guerrero ends the contest with a real moon shot, a ball that through the magic of special effects appears to break the full moon over the stadium.
As “moon chunks” rain on the field, Rodriguez yells, “Run!” (the only dialogue in the ad) and the slugging duo flees. A-Rod quickly returns to grab the Pepsi can before making his final escape.
Rodriguez and Guerrero, who signed on as endorsers in January, will also appear in point-of-sale material and as part of Pepsi’s summer “Go Pro” promotion, along with NASCAR’s Jeff Gordon, snowboarder Shaun White and MLS wunderkind Freddy Adu.
The addition of A-Rod and Guerrero gives Pepsi two multicultural marketing icons and replaces a Pepsi MLB endorsement stable that included two players now tainted by allegations of steroid abuse, Jason Giambi and Sammy Sosa, along with Ken Griffey Jr., whose career has suffered because of multiple injuries.
Pepsi has been an MLB national corporate sponsor since 1997. It also has deals with 16 MLB teams.
