Esurance, the official car insurance partner of Major League Baseball (MLB) is activating its title sponsorship of the all-digital 2015 Esurance MLB All-Star Game Ballot with an integrated campaign that spans in-stadium photobombs and Twitter, to a competition sweepstakes and a Buster Posey fronted national ad campaign.
The insurer teamed up with the league to promote the Esurance All-Star Game Ballot for the 86th All-Star Weekend and to drive voting with social media content (carrying the #ASGWorthyFan and #FinalVote hashtags) such as Instagram,
Only TWO spots remain and it’s up to YOU who goes to the #ASG.
Who gets your #FinalVote? http://t.co/cgcNWTA5bh pic.twitter.com/pPwxnExIs9
— #FinalVote (@MLB) July 8, 2015
and Twitter.
Find out the rest of the #ASG field and #FinalVote candidates tonight at 7pm ET on @espn. http://t.co/F8wTEttgbw pic.twitter.com/HXuJCEWg2h
— #FinalVote (@MLB) July 6, 2015
Esurance also aimed to generate fan All-Star excitement and drive voting with a set of MLB in-stadium photobombs.
All campaign content aimed to channel fans to the www.mlb.com/vote to cast their ballots.
Esurance also ran an associated #ASGWorthyFan Sweepstakes to maximise participation by offering 31 lucky fans a chance of winning an unforgettable trip to go to the 2015 MLB All-Star Game in Cincinnati.
With each vote cast, Esurance gave fans the chance to win their own once-in-a-lifetime All-Star experience as an Esurance #ASGWorthyFan.
The sponsor selected one winning voter from each major league market (and one Wild Card) to enjoy MLB All-Star Week in style.
The weekend-long prize certainly offered a powerful incentive: all expenses-paid weekend trip that included a first morning meeting with hall-of-famers Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan, private access to the T-Mobile All-Star FanFest, as well as access to the other associated events such as the SiriusXM® MLB All-Star Futures Game, the All-Star Legends & Celebrity Softball Game and the Gillette Home Run Derby presented by Head & Shoulders.
Competition winners will also get an invite to an exclusive pre-party thrown by MLB and the Cincinnati Reds (which includes drinks, appetizers and a private show by The Avett Brothers) and then watch the players warm up and take batting practice before the first pitch of the T-Mobile All-Star Game at the Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati.
Through the entire weekend, all the winners will be video-equipped to make sure they capture every moment of their All-Star fun and enable them to amplify their experience to the social media world using the hashtag #ASGWorthyFan.
Another aspect of the insurer’s campaign is the Esurance #InstantAllStar at T-Mobile All-Star FanFest.
For those unlucky voters not winning a spot on the #ASGWorthyFan roster, other activation elements during All-Star Week include the T-Mobile All-Star FanFest.
The long weekend sees the Duke Energy Convention Center transformed into the world’s largest baseball expo – with memorabilia, virtual batting cages, and the larger-than-life Esurance #InstantAllStar experience.
To earn the #InstantAllStar title, fans attempt to re-enact a spectacular game-saving catch against the outfield wall.
Esurance is capturing all the fan All-Star catch attempts through a 180-degree photo array and then turn the pictures into a 3D-animated GIF.
Those fans who share their #InstantAllStar GIF animation on social will be rewarded with a free tech swag bag.
Esurance will also post its favourite GIFS across its social channels using the #InstantAllStar hashtag.
The All-Star Game voting procedures initially sees fans vote for nine AL starters and eight NL starters, and this is followed by a combined fan-ballot and All-Star manager selected set of pitchers and reserves for both squads adding a further 25players to the NL and 24 to the AL.
Then finally, following the official roster announcements, fans will begin the #FinalVote selection for the last player for each league’s 34-man roster.
The 2015 All-Star Game will be played at Great American Ball Park on 14 July and will be televised in the USA by FOX Sports, in Canada by Rogers Sportsnet and RDS, and worldwide by partners in more than 160 countries.
ESPN Radio and ESPN Radio Deportes will provide exclusive national radio coverage of the All-Star Game. MLB Network, MLB.com and Sirius XM also will provide comprehensive All-Star Week coverage.
To coincide with the All-Star Game and to leverage its general MLB sponsorship, Esurance has teamed up with athlete ambassador and San Francisco Giants 2-time All-Star catcher Buster Posey for a national US advertising campaign spanning Twitter,
.@BusterPosey. He wears gloves and knows how to deliver in the clutch. But #sorta a doctor isn't a doctor. Watch.
https://t.co/8IOWu5LH5Z
— Esurance (@esurance) July 3, 2015
and a spearhead ‘Sorta Doctor’ TV commercial.
The 30-second spot debuted during the Esurance All-Star Selection Show on Sunday.
‘I’m excited to partner with Esurance because they’re an innovative San Francisco-based company that really cares about the experience for its customers,’ commented Posey.
The spot is Esurance’s latest in its “Sorta You” campaign which launched during the Super Bowl with spots starring Lindsay Lohan and Bryan Cranston.
The All-Star Ballot sponsorship is the foundation stone of Esurance’s multi-year MLB sponsorship deal, signed in April 2015, which also sees the insurer activating the league partnership across an integrated 360 marketing programme that features broadcast, digital and social assets, as well as the newly developed awards platform.
For Esurance, a division of Allstate Insurance, the synergy between its brand and the new style MLB’s All-Star Ballot lies in its own recent repositioning as a digital insurance solution for customers.
The new all-digital ballot fits with Esurance’s ownbrand mantra of providing smart technology online for consumers to run quick comparison quotes and make video claims appraisals.
‘We are excited to announce our partnership with Major League Baseball,” said Alan Gellman, Chief Marketing Officer at Esurance.
‘Just as Esurance modernized the insurance industry using smart technology, Major League Baseball is bringing fans a smarter, more modern era of baseball. This partnership allows us to collaborate with the league to enhance the baseball fan experience across the many platforms that fans live and breathe each day.’
‘We need to and want to create an emotional connection to the brand and a great way to do it is connecting to people’s passion points. ‘Sports is among the biggest passion points and also has among the highest viewership and engagement. That’s why you see so much money going into it.’
The details of the MLB sponsorship deal were not disclosed at the time of the partnership announcement, but Esurance spent $65.1m on traditional and display advertising in the first quarter of 2015 and $263.1m through all of 2014 (according to data from WPP’s Kantar Media).
‘As a company that has focused on innovation and technology, Esurance will be a great partner for Major League Baseball as we continue our focus on tailoring the fan experience and initiating a smarter, more modern era of baseball,’ said MLB President of media and Business Bob Bowman.
This centrepiece Esurance MLB All-Star Game Ballot is the largest program of its kind in professional sports and, for the first time, in 2015 it was conducted exclusively online.
Indeed, fans right across the globe – there were English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Spanish versions of the ballot – are able to cast their votes for starters 35 times at www.MLB.com and at all 30 Club web sites – online or via their mobile devices.
Whilst Esurance held the ballot naming rights in North America, while Banco BHD sponsors online All-Star balloting in the Dominican Republic (and ensured Spanish-language ballots were available to fans in the Dominican Republic via LasMayores.com – the official Spanish-language Web site of Major League Baseball).
Comment
The joint sponsor and MLB efforts must have been tactically effective as this year’s all-digital 2015 ballot broke all previous voting and participation records.
The 2015 campaigned marked the first time that the MLB All-Star Ballot took place entirely online – accessed on www.MLB.com via by desktop, tablet and mobile and via text and tweets – and racked up a total of more than 620 million votes.
Far exceeding the previous record set in 2012 of 391 million votes.
Links
Esurance MLB Website:
Esurance YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/Esurance
Esurance Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Esurance
Esurance Twitter:
Esurance Blog
MLB Website:
MLL Final Vote:
http://m.mlb.com/news/article/135466584/all-star-game-final-vote-in-last-day
MLB Twitter:
