I don’t know about you but I happen to love the MLB All-Star Game. I can remember as a kid watching and listening to the likes of Joe Garagiola and Tony Kubek call the game.
Nowadays I am as much interested for what happens on the field as I am off. Much like the Super Bowl I watch to see what the marketing and advertising folks have in store for the viewing public. Always fascinating to me to see which brands will try and take advantage of what is normally a very captive audience.
But there’s also a very fond memory I have as a kid that deals with the All-Star ballot. Who else can remember trying to poke the little holes next to your favorite player on the rectangular-shaped ballot? Of course that was then and this is now, AKA the digital marketing age and while paper ballots are still being used, one would suspect most fans would cast their votes via the Internet.
Well if you are like me and filled out your All-Star ballot online, you more than likely noticed a brand partnership between freecreditscore.com and MLBAM – Major League Baseball Advanced Media – which operates MLB.com and owns the digital rights to all Major League teams. The partnership will give freecreditscore.com national branding on MLB.com, Club sites and mobile applications through September. 
Not only is freecreditscore.com the exclusive sponsor for this year’s online balloting, it is also the exclusive sponsor of the 2013 All-Star MLB.com Final Vote, which ended last week with Toronto Blue Jays reliever Steve Delabar and Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman finishing first in their respective leagues.
The sponsorships, as Ken Chaplin, SVP of Marketing for freecreditscore.com told me, were a natural progression to expand our online product into the digital space and build upon our success with some of the teams locally.
“We wanted to have a greater reach throughout all of Major League Baseball beyond our team sponsorships with the Yankees, Mets, Cardinals, Angels and Diamondbacks,” said Chaplin.
For Chaplin it also has to do with tapping into the American pastime and the lore and good vibes that come from it.
“We want fans to associate freecreditscore.com to the All-Star Game and all its pageantry and tradition with a positive attitude, so consumers will think of us when they want or need to check their credit score,” he added.
This is not, however, the first time freecreditscore.com and MLB have teamed up. They have been a partner of MLB since 2007 however it is the first time they have worked with MLBAM.
For Noah Garden, EVP, Revenue for MLBAM, it was a natural fit.
“We always have worked with our partners like freecreditscore.com to have meaningful integrations on multiple levels,” said Garden. “Through a combination of services, we have been able to provide our fans the increasingly important message of protecting and monitoring personal information.”
As for how they will measure success of the campaign, Chaplin says he “hopes this sponsorship will drive fans to engage with freecreditscore.com to learn more about our resources to help them monitor and manage their credit.”
Named one of the Top 100 Influencers In Social Media (#41) by Social Technology Review and a Top 50 Social Media Blogger by Kred, Steve Olenski is a senior creative content strategist at Responsys, a leading global provider of on-demand email and cross-channel marketing solutions, and a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing. He can be reached via Twitter, LinkedIn or Email.