Rejected Ad Campaigns

The Chicago Cubs unveiled their new international ad campaign on Tuesday. The new graphics, designed to highlight players’ diverse backgrounds, feature many current Cubs. Fukudome’s ad reads “I don’t need an interpreter. My bat does the talking,” and features images similar to those seen on the Japanese flag.

Information leaked to Cubscast from a source close to the team includes the rejected ads from this new campaign:

Ronny Cedeno’s ad was to feature the Venezuelan flag with text reading “My fans don’t need an interpreter either. .203 is .203 in every language.”

Felix Pie’s ad read “Felix Pie: Six Tool Player.” The prototype reportedly featured Pie, a native of the Dominican Republic, utilizing his 6th tool, a Corey Patterson mask. Pie is widely known for carrying it with him to lower expectations for his strike zone command. Unfortunately, all this ad accomplished was to lower expectations for the Cubs front office’s ability to do simple math.

Jon Lieber’s ad featured the American Flag and read “Sure I’ve been to foreign countries. We’ve played games in Canada and Miami. That’s two.” Also the white stars representing each state were replaced by tiny illustrations of Ford F-150’s.

Ryan Dempster’s ad proved to be difficult for the Cubs marketing brass with Dempster’s uncertain pitching role. Reportedly, they nearly approved a graphic that displayed the Canadian maple leaf, with the quote “In my country, if you’re bad at hockey you’re bad at baseball. And I can’t skate.”