Element 79's Swan Song for Gatorade Is Pure Gold

Last Spot Is a Hyperbolic Mix of Cheeky Stunt and Verisimilitude

Posted by Bob Garfield on 06.09.08

The broad efficacy of Gatorade is arguable. The electrolytes in it obviously are useful for

replenishing salts lost in heavy exercise. That's very different, though, from the brand's

positioning: To see the ads, this Day-Glo bug juice is a magical elixir or some sort of

performance-enhancing drug.

But let's not sweat the details, shall we?

The swill is useful for athletes under heavy exertion, and does no

harm to anyone else, so Gatorade is within its rights to market

itself as a must-have accessory on the court, on the field, in the

gym and so on.

Which heavy marketing exercise Element 79, Chicago, has

accomplished brilliantly for a long time. How the "Is it in you?"

agency lost the business is one of those ad-industry mysteries,

leaving us most curious to see Element 79's swan song. This has

finally materialized. And bravo.

The spot is titled "Ball Girl," and is about one of those teens who

sit in a folding chair between the box seats and the baselines at

professional baseball games. Their job is to field the balls dribbled

foul and return them to the home dugout or hand them to an

appreciative fan. Typically, this involves bending over awkwardly

and watching the ball skitter off the heel of her mitt, often right back into the field of play. Then they

skitter after it.

Title: Ball Girl Marketer: Gatorade

Agency: Element 79, Chicago

The hyperbole, cheek by jowl with verisimilitude, is the heart of the joke. Which equally enlivens the tagline: 'Never underestimate the power of superior hydration.'

The idea of speeding up the game by relieving players of clean-up duty is thus rendered irrelevant,

but the girls do tend to look adorable in shorts.

The commercial takes us to a Triple A game between the Tacoma Rainiers and Fresno Grizzlies

(televised because ... well ... Fresno). In the action, the Tacoma batter yanks a hanging curveball

deep down the left field line. The ball curls foul into the corner and the Fresno leftfielder doesn't

even make a move on it. But then appears the ball girl, who climbs up the wall in two bounds -- Jet

Li-style -- and spins for a leaping catch. Here's some of the play-by-play:

" ... Driven down the leftfield line, and this ball is gonna be ... ohhh, it's caught! It's not Jake Wald ...

it's the ball girl! Jake Wald in left field can't believe it! And look ... she shows him up; she sort of

tosses him the ball, saying 'Take that, Jake, I don't see you making the effort.' Alfonzo the catcher,

he can't believe it. Let's look at that replay. Oh, my! What an amazing play!"

It's certainly an amazing fabrication of an amazing play. The ball girl is a stuntwoman who was lifted

by cables as she planted her feet against the wall, a sequence cut into actual game footage and

enhanced with a bit of CGI and a perfectly natural-sounding announcer track. This guy is the

quintessential play-by-play man, very much like Bob Carpenter of the Washington Nationals,

especially with his postscript as the ball girl resumes her folding chair with the bottle of Gatorade at

her feet.

" ... and look at her, sitting there, saying, 'No big deal.'"

As seamless as the leaping effect is, it's not like the Nike Ronaldinho viral that makes you wonder if

maybe it's real. This is clearly a stunt, but no less delightful for it. The hyperbole, cheek by jowl with

verisimilitude, is the heart of the joke. Which equally enlivens the tagline: "Never underestimate the

power of superior hydration."

Of course, Gatorade's whole pitch is to overestimate the power of situationally superior hydration,

but in this context the puffery comes with the charming wink.

The new agency will be asked to overcome bottled-water mania to improve sagging fortunes, but if

Element 79 couldn't use advertising like magical elixir, you have to wonder about TBWA/Chiat/Day:

Is it in them?

Top Spot of the Week Type: Screenwork June 20, 2008, Christine Champagne --- Has anyone emailed you a link to that awesome footage of the ball girl making a stunning catch in foul territory during a minor league baseball game between the Fresno Grizzlies and the Tacoma Rainiers? The video has been making the rounds on the Internet and likely fooling a lot of people, but what we are seeing is, in fact, staged. It is actually a viral video for Gatorade titled "Ball Girl" that was created by Chicago's Element 79 Partners and directed by Baker Smith of harvest, Santa Monica. In a cluttered environment full of viral work that isn't really viral (too many agencies are just slapping TV commercials up on YouTube these days and expecting them to go viral), "Ball Girl" stands out as being a true viral video, a seemingly authentic piece of compelling footage that looks like it was cut right out of a real ball game. Meanwhile, "Ball Girl" hits a homerun for product integration. In a subtle but certainly noticeable case of product placement, there is a bottle of Gatorade on the ground next to the chair the ball girl sits in after making her great play. SHOOT sought an interview with the creative team from Element 79 responsible for conceptualizing "Ball Girl," but as of press time, the agency had not gained permission from its client PepsiCo to speak about the thinking behind the viral. As you may recall, PepsiCo pulled creative duties on Gatorade from Element 79 this past April, awarding the account to TBWA\Chiat\Day, Los Angeles. Element 79 had handled Gatorade for six years. Smith was able to discuss the production end of the project, of course, explaining that he and DP Eric Treml shot "Ball Girl" on location during and after an actual game between the aforementioned Fresno Grizzlies and Tacoma Rainiers that took place in Fresno. Essentially, they shot coverage of the game on HD and later pieced it together to look as though one of the Grizzlies batters had whacked a ball of homerun distance out past the left field foul line. "The big shot, the one that follows the ball out [from the plate to left field], was completely choreographed for lack of a better word," Smith said, explaining that a motion control shot followed what would have been the trajectory of the ball, and the artisans at New York's Framestore CFC later inserted a ball in post. Golden glove As for how the ball girl (played by stuntwoman Phoenix Brown) made the spectacular catch that is the highlight of the video, she got a little help from rigs and Framestore CFC. Smith and his crew shot the big catch right after the game they were shooting concluded, attaching the ball girl to wires and having two stunt men off to the side literally yanking her up the wall.

"It was so low-tech," Smith said of the stunt. "We had her run, and she would jump, and they just gave her a little extra oomph. It was really very, very simple." That said, there was choreography involved. Smith had marks for the ball girl to hit. We were trying to have her emulate those Parkour guys in France," Smith said, making reference to a street sport and art form that has participants moving about various environments—from apartment buildings to public parks—propelling their bodies off of walls, stairs and railings. Keeping it simple “Of all the effects stuff I've ever done in my life, this was the biggest no-brainer as far as how to do it," Smith said, crediting Framestore CFC with not pressuring him to go more CG and hi-tech with his approach. "They were just fantastic," Smith said of the visual effects shop. "They are of the mind that you figure out how you want to do it, then they'll make it look good as opposed to certain places that say, 'You have to do it this way.' That can be a bit stifling. But [Framestore] said, 'Tell us how you want it to be, and shoot it the way you want, and we'll make it work.' " From a visual effects point of view, the job was straightforward, according to Framestore executive producer James Razzell. "The main challenge was rig removal for us," Razzell said. As previously noted, Framestore also created an animated ball. Crowd enhancement was also required. Was Razzell disappointed that the job didn't involve more CG elements? "Baker's goal and the agency's goal was for it to be something that looked like it actually happened rather than it being some house of flying daggers with her leaping forty feet in the air," Razzell said laughing. "I think [the realism] is what really sells it. It really feels like she has scaled the wall even from the alternative, slo-motion angle." Paul Martinez and Charlie Johnston of Lost Planet, Santa Monica, cut "Ball Girl," which, appropriately, ends abruptly. Smith noted that someone taping this game at home and then posting it online likely wouldn't have the tools to do a fade out, so the sudden end made sense. Furthermore, it added to the pulled-from-TV quality of the video. Reflecting on the job, Smith remarked, "It's funny. Having done this from twenty years, it's gone from the ultimate compliment to a director being, 'That's so cinematic' to it being, 'Hey, that looks kind of crappy like a viral video!' "

06/25/2008 3:16 PM ET

Behind the scenes of the Fresno ball girl video Chukchansi Park provides setting for recent Web phenomenon By Benjamin Hill / Special to MLB.com

NBA star LeBron James has a vertical leap of 44 inches, but he's got nothing on Fresno's ball girl. MiLB Headlines

• Watch the video • At Home With the Fresno Grizzlies • On Location in Fresno If you regularly peruse the World Wide Web, there is a good chance you have seen the "Ball girl Makes Incredible Catch" video making the rounds over the past couple of days. In the 39-second clip, a ball girl at Fresno's Chukchansi Park climbs the left-field wall to make an amazing leaping catch.

Well, at least some of what appears in that video actually happened.

This much is true: on April 17, the Fresno Grizzlies hosted the Tacoma Rainiers in an evening contest at Chukchansi Park. And at some point in the ballgame, Tacoma's Brent Johnson came to the plate against Victor Santos and lofted a deep fly ball down the left-field line.

What didn't happen (at least not in real life) is the catch itself. The ball girl was a stunt woman, working on behalf of an advertising production agency that was filming a Gatorade ad. However, this particular campaign was scrapped before the commercial could make it to the airwaves. The ad was leaked online instead, where it quickly became a viral video sensation.

As a result, Grizzlies Director of Media Relations Paul Kennedy has been a very busy man.

"I've been getting calls from all over the country and our website has gotten a lot more hits over the past couple of days," he said. "It's funny, because there's really no explanation for why something like this catches fire. I think what helped the video find an audience is that it's really hard to tell that it was a commercial. With the logos removed and no voiceovers, it really does look like unedited game footage."

The distinction between fantasy and reality is indeed a tricky one to make, largely due to the clip's attention to detail. The first 12 seconds is actual game footage from the April 17 contest, and Grizzlies announcer Doug Greenwald played a part in the ruse by later recording an authentic-sounding play-by-play call of the ball girl's acrobatics.

"Our facility provided the size and setting that was perfect for their needs," said Kennedy. "The production crew got their stuff set up in the morning, shot the game that evening, then worked through the night on the choreographed stunt."

While Kennedy estimates that eight or nine players and coaches were used as extras during the overnight shoot, it was Jake Wald who was featured most prominently. Wald, who is actually an infielder, stars in the clip as a somewhat humiliated left fielder who passively watches the ball girl's heroics from several feet away. He is currently a member of the Connecticut Defenders and regular readers of this site might also recognize him as one half of the mock-country duo Stache and Hawk.

For the Grizzlies, the question is how to cash in on their fleeting moment as YouTube sensations.

"It's tough, because we've been on the road and we're not in a position to immediately capitalize on this," said Kennedy. "But this helps get our team name, logo, and uniforms out there, and will only help our reputation grow. The bottom line is that there's no such thing as bad exposure."

And despite the unexpected popularity of the ball girl clip, don't expect to see any copycat attempts at Chukchansi Park anytime soon.

"Like most Minor League parks, we have the bullpen located down the left-field foul line," said Kennedy. "If a ball is hit in that direction, it's just going to be a relief pitcher chasing after it."

Benjamin Hill is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues or its clubs.

Gatorade Scores With 'Ball Girl' Suzanne Vranica June 25. 2008

An online video dubbed "Ball Girl" has been getting a huge viral boost. The video, which began appearing online a few weeks ago, features a ball girl for the Fresno Grizzlies minor-league baseball team scaling the outfield wall to make a stunning catch of a foul ball. She then insouciantly tosses the ball to the left fielder, who looks on disbelievingly, and quietly returns to her seat along the foul line.

The video, which was created by Omnicom Group's Element 79, has attracted 1.2 million views on Digg.com alone.

Turns out the spot is a fake. The key to the source of the spot comes at the very end of the ad, as the girl returns to her seat -- a bottle of Gatorade appears briefly at her feet. The ball girl is, in fact, a stunt woman who uses cables to help elevate her in the air, the ad agency says. Element 79, which shot the spot in April, intended to release the film online and tried to make the ad look like a homemade video.

The sleeker version of the ad (which was to carry the tagline: "Never Underestimate the Power of Superior Hydration") was supposed to air on TV. But the spot and online video were never green-lighted because the Chicago agency was dropped from PepsiCo's Gatorade and Tropicana ad account, according to Dennis Ryan, chief creative officer at Element 79. He says he doesn't know how the spot made its way to the Web -- nor does Gatorade.

We didn't put the Ball Girl video out there but clearly we are pleasantly surprised at all the attention," says a spokeswoman for Gatorade.

Creating the ad was no easy feat. The agency says it had to wait for just the right foul ball to left field during the game and then had to persuade more than 1,500 fans to stay after the game ended so it could shoot the stunt woman making her leap and the crowd reacting.

While Element 79 has done many well-known ads for sports drinks over the years, PepsiCo executives had been dissatisfied with Element 79's recent creative work, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Gatorade business was shifted to Omnicom's TBWA/Chiat/Day.

'Ball Girl' scores buzz for Gatorade

By Mike Hughlett and Eric Benderoff | Chicago Tribune reporters June 26, 2008

Seen that wild ball girl video on YouTube? Ball girl streaks down the left field line at a minor league baseball game and, with a Jackie Chan-like jump at the wall, snares a deep fly ball the left fielder couldn't reach. Unbelievable. Well, it is indeed unbelievable: The clip is a masterwork of "viral" marketing, essentially an ad aimed at touting Gatorade, but without actually mentioning the company. With viral video, marketers try to create a pop culture buzz that eventually becomes associated with a product. Chicago-based Gatorade, an arm of PepsiCo, has done viral marketing before, but it's never taken off like ball girl, said Jill Kinney, a Gatorade spokeswoman.

The video has had 11/2 to 2 million views on YouTube, she said. On Wednesday it was the most shared video on Break.com, another video-sharing Web site. The ball girl video was posted June 3, and Advertising Age, an industry publication, published a glowing review of it a few days later. "This week, though, is definitely the tipping point," Kinney said. "It has reached critical mass." A plug Wednesday for it on "Good Morning America" certainly helped. Viral videos are passed along via e-mail and shared on personal profiles at social sites like Facebook and MySpace. But they achieve must-see status at YouTube, the Web's leading video site. "Ball Girl" was posted on YouTube by a filmmaker affiliated with Element 79 Partners, the Chicago ad agency that created the spot. Element 79 has done Gatorade ads since 2002. The original Ball Girl post had a clear reference to Gatorade in the text describing the video. But the video was copied and shared several times over without mentioning the Gatorade connection. The video gives only the slightest nod to the beverage. When the ball girl sits down after the amazing catch, there's a bottle of Gatorade near her feet. "It's subtle," Kinney said. The real payoff is the buzz generated by the video. "Anytime your brand enters into popular culture discussions, it's going to benefit," Kinney said. She added that even though many viewers thought the outlandish catch was somehow a fake—which, indeed, was the result of special effects—they were still entertained by it. Viral videos are not just associated with commercial ventures, and some have achieved cult status, including "Lazy Sunday," a music video parody from Saturday Night Live that was a key catalyst to helping YouTube build an audience.

Sports Ball girl's incredible catch is an Internet hit What was supposed to be an ad, then shelved, wound up on YouTube and elsewhere. By Chris Hine, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 3, 2008

A determined ball girl chases a deep fly ball down the left-field line, knowing she's the only one who can make the play. A video shows her climbing several feet up the wall, turning around at just the right moment and making a spectacular catch as the left fielder watches. There's only one small problem -- it's fake.

Quite a catch

• Ballgirl's amazing catch • L.A. Now: Going viral -- not as easy as it seems • They too pulled a fast one

The young woman was helped up the wall with cables while creating an advertisement for Gatorade, though the ad was never distributed. No one is claiming responsibility for getting the video posted, but it has received more than 3.5 million hits on various websites in the last month, Gatorade spokeswoman Jill Kinney said. And that's just fine with the folks involved with the energy drink. Gatorade ended its association with the agency that created the ad, Element 79, shortly after the video was completed and shelved the campaign. "We were not planning to release the ball girl video," Kinney said. "However, now that it's out there, we're thrilled with the response it's getting." Kinney said Gatorade doesn't know who posted the video, and Element 79 said on its website that it had nothing to do with posting the video. There is no mention of Gatorade in the video, though there is a bottle by the chair where the ball

girl sits near the end of the clip. And Gatorade has clearly become associated with it, to the company's delight. When the video was initially posted, many viewers questioned whether it was an authentic event, something that was intended when the ad was conceived. "It had the desired effect of 'Wow, is that real?' " Kinney said. "What we've noticed from the comments is that if people know it's not real then they're still entertained." The clip is a type of viral video, one that gains traction as people e-mail or message to each other via YouTube or social networking websites such as Facebook or MySpace. Tom Pirko, president of Bevmark, a Buellton, Calif.-based beverage industry consulting firm, said the key to a successful viral video, such as the ball girl ad, is providing entertainment quickly. "In the time of YouTube, surprise is compelling, everybody is looking for this quick hit of emotion, everybody wants to have some new sensation and see something that's unusual," Pirko said. "This ad carries along these fun sensations and can translate into some equity for the brand." So it has been good for Gatorade, and entertaining, but a hoax on those who have watched it and accepted it as a real event.

Posted: Tuesday June 24, 2008 10:18AM; Updated: Thursday June 26, 2008 2:54PM