FanPost Friday: Ad-itions

I’m filling in for Sanford on today’s FanPost Friday while he’s out buying his wife a Lexus during the December to Remember Sales Event or something. Speaking of commercials, Corey Brock reports for The Athletic that the Mariners ads are not coming back. As if we haven’t gotten enough bad news this offseason. When the ads went away in 2020, I’d assumed that was Covid-related, but it turns out that the founders of Copacino Fujikado, the company that made the ads, retired later that year. The ads haven’t been back since.

This comes as sad news to many of us, as the Mariners ads were the one place where Seattle towered over the rest of MLB. It’s been more than 20 years, but I still never order a latte without a voice in my head saying, “Everybody loves a latte!”

Nor has the phrase, “I took my geoduck to the Puyallup” ever left some recess of my brain.

These are just the classics. 21st-Century highlights tought us how to flip all the objects in our house, inspired a city to follow Ichiro’s example, one-upped Tiger Woods, introduced us to Larry Bernandez, and taught us that Kyle Seager is shockingly the best actor to ever don the Northwest Green.

Admitedly, the ads had gotten a bit stale by the end, and taking some time off for a creative reset was probably a good idea. The last good commercial was the Crafty Lefty ad from 2019, centered on the Marco Gonzales-Wade LeBlanc friendship.

But they’ve had the time to recharge and build new relationships at Copacino Fujikado or find a new agency, and we’re still not getting anything. So here are a few ideas for ads the Mariners could create:

• Julio makes an amazing, inning-ending catch and throws it to a cute kid in the J-Rod Squad. But a mean man (maybe wearing a Blue Jays hat?) intercepts! So Julio hits a home run right at the kid, who catches it.
• A heist-movie parody where we Assemble The Crew™ (Scott Servais, Manny Acta, Kristopher Negron, Dylan Moore, and Sam Haggerty), get an overhead shot of them huddled in Scott’s office looking at a blueprint of a baseball diamond, and then see the execution of a double steal.
• A montage of several iconic Seattle types (a barista, a tech worker, a fish thrower) each having a bad day and Eugenio coming by and cheering them up while a Mary-Tyler-Moore-esque jingle about Eugenio’s good vibes plays in the background.
• A Ken Burns-style documentary telling the backstory of George Kirby and his current dominance on the mound, but played like they’re talking about 1923 instead of 2023, complete with grainy black-and-white footage and interviews with Simms and Blowers.
• Ty France is hit by a series of pitches and each time we get a bleeped out swear word, and then he trots to first base, looks at the camera and says, “Pardon my French.” OK, I’m running out of steam here.

So the questions for the comments this week:

1. Which was your favorite Mariner ad?
2. What ad would you make for the 2023 season? And maybe a new slogan?