Twins Ads

Silly me, I didn't realize the Twins ads are available online, until just now when I thought--aha!--maybe I should go look under the official site's Fan Forum page rather than just Video.

They've produced just two TV ads so far. The spot featuring Al Newman is lame; after seeing it once, I've seen it enough to last me the season. The other one featuring the mantel full of Twins bobbleheads ("Sorry, Uncle Phil. But you were a Yankee fan anyway.") is better. After seeing it a few times, it still makes me smile. But I hope there's more to come. No TV spots featuring the reigning Cy Young? Nothing starring Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau? You can't find an excuse to put Michael Cuddyer's dimpled smile on TV for 30 seconds? Nothing about Radke or Joe Nathan? Nike can use Torii Hunter to promote its products, but the Twins are trying to sell tickets with a dopey spot featuring... Al Newman? Please, tell me you're just getting warmed up, folks.

There are a lot of radio ads available, usually a strong suit for the Twins marketing department. I thought they'd brought in a new advertising company, but these spots sound like they're done by the same creative minds that produced the "Get to Know 'Em" series and other ads in the last few years. The theme this year is essentially 'support your local team.' Some of them also push special ticket packages, and that's all well and good as a general sales pitch. The scripts are as witty and amusing as usual, even if there isn't a classic like the Mientkiewicz song in this batch, and at least a few of them promote some select team stars by name. I like the Poets, Johan, and Mauer ads.

But I could do without the ad that tells me, "You must ask not what the Twins can do for you, but what are you gonna do for your Twins?" Sorry, fellas. That's not really how the customer-business relationship works. If you want to get me down to the ballpark spending money, you bet you better tell me what the Twins can do for me. Don't tell me that I owe it to you. Convince me that it's in my own interest to come to the games, because a Twins game is more entertaining, more fun, than anything else I might think of doing this summer. If you want to pull the fencesitters onto the bandwagon, that's how it's done.