Unfathomed Tension

Company: Avis Rent a Car
Aired: April, 2008
Channel: ESPN
Appeal: Humor


The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox own what is without question the most intense and fiercest rivalry in professional American sports history. The only other that could even hold a candle to this rivalry is MAYBE the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers epic duels dating back to the 1950s and 60s, but really intensified in the eighties when Magic Johnson and Larry Bird went toe to toe. The Yankees and Red Sox first squared off April 26th, 1901. One century and 2,064 games later, the legendary battles of both franchises will forever be etched in baseball history.

Back in 1916, Harry Frazee purchased the Boston Red Sox on credit for $500,000. After the 1919 season, Frazee was pressed for some cash to pay back his loans, so he decided to sell some players to the Yankees… one of those players happened to be Babe Ruth. Despite the Red Sox recent success (they had just won the World Series in 1918) Frazee felt he had no other options. This trade ultimately altered the path both franchises were on, completely reversing their success and led to a Yankees dynasty. This quite abrupt shift in luck became known as the, “Curse of the Bambino.”

The legend grew because between the years of 1920 to 2003 the Yankees won 26 World Series championships and 39 pennants, while the Red Sox won 0 World Series championships and only 4 pennants. Also during that 83-year stretch, the Yankees finished with a better record than Boston 66 times. The curse was finally broken (much to my dissatisfaction) in 2004 when the Red Sox came back from a 3-0 game deficit against my Yankees and won four straight games, making history as the only team in baseball history to accomplish that feat.

Here is an ad I first saw back in April of 2008 while watching ESPN. Enjoy!

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I thought this was a hilarious concept and the execution was flawless. The advertisers make it clear to the viewer the office is located New York quite early in the commercial by showing a quick shot of the man’s Yankees mug as he stirs his coffee. Even if you didn’t catch the Yankees emblem, the thick New Yorker accents are hard to miss, especially with the lines, “How ya doin” and “Forget about it.” They also color-code the furniture and wardrobe to better illustrate their point. The chairs in the break room are navy blue and the new guy’s tie is red. To illustrate he is from Boston, he uses the term, “Wicked,” which is directly associated with Bostonians. They also stress his heavy accent on the word “Caars.”

Anyone who can distinguish these accents and knows the history of both ball clubs can truly appreciate this ad. As a die-hard Yankees fan I understand the level of tension there is between not just the players, but probably even more so, between fans. You just know there is no way that guy would survive in that office if it happened in real life. I laughed at this ad when it first aired and still do to this day. Great commercial idea because it stuck with me for the past two years.

The "TiVoists" Revolution

The year was 1998. You know 1998 right? The year Google search-engine was founded? The infamous Monica Lewinsky scandal? How about Eighty-two year old legendary icon Frank Sinatra dies? Or maybe for our younger audience; the opening of Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park at Walk Disney World? Any of this ringing a bell? Anyone involved in TV advertising will all say the same thing… 1998 was the year television, as we knew it was revolutionized.


Since the beginning of time, or at least since TV’s had “rabbit ears,” the only way to avoid watching advertisements was to gather up enough energy to brush the crumbs off our bare-chest and go to the kitchen to get another box of cookies. But nowadays, with the revolutionary ideas of TiVo and DVRs, we can simply fast forward past these advertisements. Does this seem fair to you? Sure it’s convenient but what about the advertisers who are virtually throwing their money away? Millions of dollars wasted. Hundreds of people working countless hours on the marketing strategy, who the target audience is and what message the commercial is trying to get across. Then once the advertising agency is finally happy with their ideas they bring them to the client. Numerous pitches shot down before the client agrees to sign off on one. But that’s not all. Then it comes to actually shooting the commercial. Time and effort spent editing and piecing it together. Adding sound effects and special effects. Not to mention the hassle a celebrity endorser could evolve into. Whether they’re showing up three hours late, the refreshments aren’t to their liking or the hairstylist messed up her hair… on and on and on the possible bumps in the road are endless But wait, it gets better. Now it’s time to actually find time slots to advertise on which is far from cheap. To put it in perspective, the main networks: ABC, NBC, FOX and CBS each round up approximately $10 billion a year in TV ad revenues.

Listen, I don’t work in the business YET, but one day I hope to and it kills me to think that my hard work will be going to waste. With this blog I plan to open some stubborn people’s eyes to how interesting advertising can be; I call these people “TiVoists.” So spoiled by their fancy DVR systems, the human race has neglected to truly appreciate great ads. Despite the growing phenomenon of TiVo and fast-forwarding past commercials which has made media-buyers lives a living hell, advertising has always been and still is what keeps these industries afloat. TV, radio and magazines all rely heavily on selling advertisement space, so without commercials, who knows what the media scene would be like today. I am hopeful that commercials become more relevant and a buzz about memorable ads (not just Super Bowl ads) begins to circulate. Although Nielsen is working hard on researching and collecting information to track viewers' TiVo habits, the TV landscape and how companies choose to advertise has forever been altered.