Ballpark Tries Strong-Arm Tactics

LOS ANGELES "Frank" (actor Larry Joe Campbell), the plain-spoken Midwesterner of TBWA\Chiat\Day's first campaign for Sara Lee's Ballpark Franks, has been retired in favor of a new, edgy push specifically directed to young males, according to Rob Schwartz, ecd at the Omnicom Group shop. In creative executions reminiscent of TBWA\C\D's infectious, bizarre imagery for Skittles, Combos and Snickers, the new approach uses a muscular, hairy arm (of an Italian opera singer living in Brazil, said Patrick O'Neill, cd) protruding from the stomachs of teen boys, manhandling them into eating Ballpark hot dogs. The arm represents hunger. Though print ads and wild postings use the tagline "Hunger gets what hunger wants," the TV spots feature a primitive voiceover that delivers the line as, "Hunger get what hunger want. Big, tasty Ballpark frank," while the arm slams down money for the dog or bursts through the backdrop. "It's a guttural, primordial need," said O'Neill. "It has no time for proper pronunciation." "There's a shift in the targeting of the brand to go younger, both in age and mind-set," said Schwartz. "Hot dogs appeal to teen hunger, which is true for all of us." An upcoming Mad magazine insert uses the arm against Alfred E. Newman. The campaign, developed by copywriter Brad Beerbohm and art director Mahmud Husain working under O'Neill, started with a "My Hunger" viral video, O'Neill explained. It shows a teenager living with his huge belly-protruding arm. It scratches him as he rises, stuffs him with hot dogs and slaps him to attention when there are girls to be ogled. Like TBWA\C\D's Snicker's campaign, it's set to an anthem ("My hunger, he's my best friend") done in the style of a kooky '60s sitcom theme song. "It's a little Courtship of Eddie's Father," O'Neill admitted. Other spots include a Cannes-shortlisted effort in which a teenager watching TV with his girlfriend offers her a bite of a hot dog. The arm intervenes, taking the bite out of her mouth and feeding it to the boy, who sheepishly shrugs off his lack of control of the overpowering force. A 30-second TV spot shows two teens playing videogames on a couch. The arm feeds one a frank; the other teen's arm makes a move toward it but is beaten back. A new execution shows the arm of a teenager on a park bench releasing a spider monkey to steal an adult's hot dog and bring it back to the teen. He returns the man's glare with an innocent shrug. A YouTube spot shows a teenager typing when his "hunger" insists that he eat a frank now. When he demurs, the arm chokes him to attention, and then hits him in the crotch, causing him to double over into the hot dog, bringing a satisfied smile across his face. "Oscar Mayer owns kids," said O'Neill. "But it's not just kids who eat hot dogs. It's a huge white space to occupy—guy hunger." The previous campaign leaned toward the rational (Ballpark made better-quality hot dogs), but teens had deaf ears to sensible arguments, said Schwartz. "We needed to find an emotional portal," he said. The Playa del Rey, Calif., agency undertook a "disruption" development plan, putting 30 adults into a fabricated teenager's room with layers of mess, and asking "everybody to suspend their disbelief for a day, leave their corporate self and get into the mind of a 15-year-old boy." Schwartz said they rediscovered a familiar world from years of advertising Sony PlayStations and Apple iPods: warped, full of slapstick comedy and broad laughs that turn unexpectedly violent. The agency invited the client into the strategy by using a looseleaf paper "memo" that resembled a note that had been secretly passed in a classroom. "There is latent coolness in hot dogs," Schwartz said. "Sometimes it is overlooked how they satisfy. Teenagers are looking for food satisfaction."The client spent $6 million last year in measured media, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus.

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Ballpark Tries Strong-Arm Tactics

Gregory Solman

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Gregory Solman