Imagine getting this assignment for homework: “Make a commercial for a sports drink starring Ken Griffey, Jr.”
Where would you start?
Susan Credle and Steve Rutter, who dream up commercials for BBDO, an ad agency in New York, started their ads for All Sport asking themselves what would be funny. That’s what makes assignments more fun in the ad biz than in school – you don’t have to study; you make up the answers.
The answer they came up with resulted in turning Ken Griffey Jr. into an old man sitting in a barber’s chair watching his grandson Ken Griffey IV playing a very different baseball game than the one played today.
In the imaginary future Susan and Steve made up, All Sport is a magic elixir that makes players super-human, forcing sports to change wildly to keep up.
“We imagined things baseball could do to keep him from knocking balls out every at-bat,” Steve says. “We added bases (an octagon of eight), basemen and outfielders in the air: center, right and left blimp.” They added pitchers, too, so Ken the 4th would face three hurlers at once.
But not all their ideas made it from the drawing board to the final commercial. (Some of their sketches are included above.)
“We thought about putting a swimming pool between fourth and fifth base,” Susan says, “or hurdles on the way to first. We even imagined a treadmill on the way home.”
What did Junior think of their wacky ideas?
“He liked the blimp. The glove (the fielder is wearing) is almost two feet long,” Steve says.
“It’s funny. In the original Ken Griffey storyboard we had, his grandson hits the ball out of the arena. We thought it would be more fun to see a blimp catch it.
“But Ken was like: ‘No way! I’m not shooting this! What do you mean my grandson gets out? My grandson’s going to hit homers!’
“We explained it was because of guys like him hitting so many home runs, that baseball would have to change to hold them back in the future.”
The ads starring Grandpa Griffey and an earlier one featuring Grandpa Shaq (which included 20-foot moving baskets) were just the beginning.
Steve and Susan are back in their offices, dreaming up a football spot for 49ers Jerry Rice and Steve Young. They won’t say what ideas will be in it; we’ll have to wait to see what their futures hold.
