The Seattle Mariners Unveiled Their TV Ads for 2019, and They're as Charming as Ever

Mid-March is mostly about basketball, but it’s also time for a longstanding baseball tradition: the unveiling of the new Seattle Mariners ads. 

Few professional sports teams have as consistent of a creative advertising approach as the Mariners. Each year, their spots feature wry scenarios in which the players get to goof around with absurd premises—which lets the fans get to know the people behind the uniforms that much better. (This will be particularly useful in 2019, as the M’s are in a rebuilding year—with 20 newcomers on the 40-man roster.) 

The consistency in the advertising is largely thanks to the MLB team’s partnership with Seattle agency Copacino+Fujikado. This is C+F’s 23rd season handling the Mariners’ spots—an amazing run by any measure. (Speedy outfielder Mallex Smith, star of the “Moving Target” spot, was just 2 years old when C+F won the Mariners acccount.) 

Check out the 2019 spots below, along with the Mariners’ descriptions of each one. 

SpeeDee

Featuring Dee Gordon and third base coach Chris Prieto

Dee Gordon is one of the fastest players in Major League Baseball. His Average Sprint Speed has been clocked at 29.7 feet per second. He regularly blazes the 90 feet from home to first base in under four seconds. So what does it take to keep Gordon running at top speed? His own four-person pit crew, of course. 

Stands

Featuring Mitch Haniger

Outfielder Mitch Haniger has opened a lot of eyes with his offense, but he’s also made some amazing catches. This commercial imagines the exchange with a lucky fan when the All-Star outfielder crash lands in the seats chasing a ball—something that actually happened on May 19, 2018, at T-Mobile Park against the Detroit Tigers.

Moving Target

Featuring Kyle Seager and Mallex Smith

Speed is also one of the attributes of newcomer Mallex Smith. Whether he’s running down fly balls in center field, or torching the base paths (10 triples and 40 stolen bases last season), Smith is among the elite of MLB. As third baseman Kyle Seager found out, it’s really hard to pin down something that moves so fast.

Arts & Crafty

Featuring Marco Gonzales, Wade LeBlanc, Yusei Kikuchi and Félix Hernández

Last year, we learned about Félix Hernández’s artistic prowess for “painting the corners” with his pitches. This year, we take a peek into the studio of three “crafty” lefthanders, Marco Gonzales, Wade LeBlanc and Yusei Kikuchi, who show us their hidden talents. 

“There’s an exciting new energy and great personalities up and down the Mariners roster and that shines through in these four commercials,” says Mariners vp of marketing Gregg Greene. 

One fun little Easter egg: The superfan “Brad” from the “Stands” spot does indeed have the @hanimalfanimal17 Instagram account that he shouts out at the end of the spot.

The Mariners are asking fans to vote for their favorite spot among the four. So far, “Arts & Crafty” is leading the way. 

The commercials will run throughout the season on local and regional broadcast and cable channels. They were shot on location in Peoria, Arizona, by Blue Goose Productions of Mercer Island. Check out a BTS video from the shoot below. 

CREDITS

Client: Seattle Mariners
Agency: Copacino+Fujikado
ECD: Mike Hayward
GCD: Andrew Gall
Sr. AD: Andy Westbrock
CW: Caroline Henry   
Production Company: Blue Goose Productions