Sterling Cooper Isn’t Impressed

Since the Ricketts have taken over the Cubs they have made two notable deals with major corporations. Earlier this year there was the Toyota agreement that brought Wrigley Field its biggest advertisement in memory; a large, fairly unattractive sign hanging above the left center field bleachers. The Cubs then later combined with the Sox to gusher away the Crosstown Classic (or Crosstown Showdown depending on your cable network) and replace it with the BP Crosstown Cup.

So one major deal was with Toyota, a company that shortly after the deal was announced was not so kindly urged to ramp up their massive safety recall resulting in what was at the time thought to be one of the worst corporate PR disasters of all time. And then one with BP, a company that is now the most hated corporation in the country, responsible for wrecking the Gulf Coast and ticking off basically everyone.

Anyway, I don’t blame the Ricketts for those doses of bad advertising luck, I’m happy they own the team and all. But for a family that specializes in the markets and knowing companies, their recent investments have me thinking of switching to Scottrade. That’s why I suggest the following, should anyone with the last name Ricketts come across this site:

1. The BP Crosstown Cup should be redesigned to look like an actual baseball player’s cup, as pictured. Particularly now that a real, legendary cup trophy is residing in Chicago for at least a year, humor is the only way to make this baseball cup work and not get greeted with boos, as it was today at Wrigley.

2. That Toyota sign needs to have a function, beyond dampening my ever present need to gamble. How about if a home run ball hits it, everyone with a bleacher ticket wins a Prius? Or just one person does. I have no idea how far away it is from home, but it seems like it would be pretty hard to hit, so either way. My point is people like advertisements more when they can at least appear to serve a fun purpose.

3. Do some sort of promotional with Cubscast. You’ve tried the big boys a couple times now and what have you to show for it? (Well, beyond the bags full of cash, which we can’t provide by the way.) If you hook up with us, I can personally guarantee that we won’t force the government to demand a recall of our product, nor will we ruin hundreds of miles of coastline while tossing around vaguely pornographic terms like Top Hat and Junk Shot.

While I await a call from the Ricketts, if you, the Cubscast listener/reader, have any other thoughts for improving these ad deals, please share…