World Series Not a Marketing Bonanza
So few of you watched last week’s lowest-rated World Series that it’s unlikely its players are going to garner much interest on Madison Avenue.
At least that’s the thinking of Bob Dorfman, executive vice president and creative director of Pickett Advertising in San Francisco. Dorfman’s typically playful and irreverent report on the marketability of the World Series participants finds few winners.
Dorfman says St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols is the only seriously bankable player in the Series. “As one of the game’s most powerful hitters, he could sell power tools, muscle cars and trucks or PowerBar,” Dorfman writes in his 2006 World Series Sports Marketers’ Scouting Report.
Dorfman suggests soap or hand-cleaning products for Detroit Tigers pitcher Kenny Rogers, who was accused of having pine tar or another substance on his hand when he pitched during the Series. Ray-Bans for sunglasses-at-night wearing Cardinals Manager Tony LaRussa. And perhaps a tire, auto or oil company for Cardinals infielders Scott Rolen and Aaron Miles.
And he’s not a fan of the Cardinal Scott Spiezio’s bright facial hair: “Time to introduce his red soul patch to the miracle of Gillette Fusion.”
CRAIG DAVIS In more than 33 years at the Sun Sentinel, Craig Davis has written about a wide variety of sports topics from baseball to yachting, fishing to triathlons, and also worked as a copy editor and page designer. Recently he reported on local sports, including running, swimming, cycling, equestrian and beach volleyball. He enjoys sports as a participant as well as a spectator, is active in the South Florida running scene plays in the curling club at Saveology Iceplex. This blog offers a glimpse at the business side of sports in the interest of enhancing enjoyment of the games and sporting options as a spectator as well as a participant.
