The 2011 MLB season as not been kind to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Forget for a moment that the historic franchise is currently in the midst of a $150 million bankruptcy financing plan. Forget too that many of the Dodgers financial woes stem from a messy divorce between the team’s owner and its CEO. Now consider that more than halfway through the season, the Dodgers are tied for dead last in the NL West, 14.5 games back from first place and defending World Series Champions, the San Francisco Giants. Yeah, and you thought the Cubs were in bad shape.
Despite a dismal year, Hyundai is attempting to restore a sense of pride in Dodgers fans with a new print campaign. Created by Hyundai’s in-house, Huntington Beach-based shop Innocean, the ads line up Hyundai vehicles’ stats with those of the team, taking on a vintage feel representative of happier times in the City of Angels. The agency’s ECD Jeff Spiegel explains that the campaign seeks to make a “true connection” to the Dodger faithful, saying “Because statistics are a huge part of baseball, we created a series of posters around numbers that were meaningful to Hyundai and matched them up with numbers that would be meaningful, insightful or just plain fun to Dodgers fans.” Supplementing the campaign are vintage-style trading cards that link the Hyundai car lineup to the Dodgers. If you can’t celebrate your ball club, you might as well celebrate their sponsors, right?