As reflected in last week’s Super Bowl feedback story, the agency creatives in our informal poll weren’t too enamored of this year’s crop of Big Game ads. And generally those who picked their favorites seemed to gravitate to one of the Anheuser-Busch comedy spots. That sentiment apparently extended to a significant number of prospective consumers, if you place credence in the USA Today poll.
But somewhat lost in the shuffle was the Charles Schwab ad: "HR King," a :30 directed by Bryan Buckley of bicoastal/ international hungry man for BBDO New York. This was my favorite spot on Super Sunday—a pick that admittedly has elici-ted puzzled looks from several friends and colleagues.
The commercial opens in an empty stadium under a moonlit sky, with Barry Bonds practicing his homerun stroke. He’s hammering baseballs deep into the stands until a whispering voice seemingly from the heavens intervenes.
"It’s time. It’s time to walk into retirement," advises the voice.
Bonds resumes batting practice, except now he’s only able to muster a weak grounder that rolls into foul territory. He steps out of the batter’s box and looks upward, shouting, "Hank, cut it out already!"
The next scene reveals that the voice from above is that of baseball great Hank Aaron, the all-time career homerun leader whose record could be in jeopardy if Bonds strings together several more stellar seasons. Bonds, of course, set the single-season record of 73 homers this past year for the San Francisco Giants.
Seated in the stadium’s press box, Aaron looks sheepishly into the camera and responds to Bonds with an innocent-sounding, "Hank? Hank who?"
This segues into the Charles Schwab message underscoring the importance of getting retirement advice from someone you can trust. The sales point being that Schwab provides expert retirement advice that’s "objective, uncomplicated and not dri-ven by commission."
"HR King" struck a responsive chord in me on several levels. For one, I admit a personal bias, being a Giants fan since I was a kid. More importantly, the humor of the spot came through, which in and of itself was gratifying. In the "Your Shot" column below, Jay Cranford, creative director at Stone & Ward, Little Rock, Ark., relates that he was happy to see "the return of comedy" during the Super Bowl.
Furthermore, the conceptual tie-in to Schwab’s product wasn’t obscure or too far a reach. The simple message about retirement advice rang true.
But "HR King" really hit home for me because there was a subtle 9/11 undercurrent to it—without being schmaltzy or exploitative, while still being humorous. Maybe I’m attaching more to the spot than its creators intended, but I remember the Sept. 10 newspaper coverage of Bonds hitting three homeruns to help win the previous day’s game. The homerun chase had become the talk at the office water cooler. It was a major story, which became irrelevant the next morning.
However, when baseball eventually returned to stadiums across the country—particularly in New York—it was a moving experience, and in some small way contributed to the still-ongoing healing process. And with a less-hyped perspective, Bonds’ bid to break the record of 70 homers in a season resumed. Again, in a small measure, the quest for 70 was a welcome diversion.
This added dimension made a baseball spot during a football game somehow register on a special level. The BBDO-conceived ad was a humorous reminder of the summer chase—a homer derby, which at first dominated the headlines and airwaves, then became inconsequential only to later hold some value in the nation’s recovery process.
