When baseball slugger Barry Bonds – one home run shy of tying the all-time record entering Wednesday night’s game – hits his next one out of the park, a Colorado sushi chain will be ready with congratulatory full-page newspaper ads.
But they won’t be for Bonds.
“Congratulations Hank Aaron on 755 home runs,” the ad for Hapa Sushi Grill says about Hammerin’ Hank’s record, set three decades ago. Below, small print reads: “Organic beef and chicken. No added steroids.”
The ad pokes fun at the image of modern major-league baseball as a haven for players who use performance-enhancing drugs. Though Bonds has never admitted steroid use, much has been made of his radical gain in muscle mass after the age of 35.
But Hapa founder Mark Van Grack and the ad’s creator, Jonathan Schoenberg of Boulder-based TDA Advertising & Design, insist the ad is not meant to slam Bonds or baseball.
“A lot of restaurants are moving toward more natural products,” Van Grack said. “This was a good way to communicate that the natural way is the better way.”
Added Schoenberg: “We’re not mean people. … Well, I am. But TDA is not full of mean people.”
Van Grack said the ad fits with Hapa’s approach toward edgier advertising. A Hapa TV ad shows adolescent boys buying a hamburger, then setting it ablaze on a neighbor’s doorstep.
“We don’t do traditional ads,” Van Grack said. “But we try to have a positive message.”
The ad is expected to run by Friday, even if Bonds doesn’t tie the record by then. The ads are scheduled to run in the Boulder Daily Camera, Colorado Daily and The Onion.
Response to the ad concept was overwhelmingly positive from sports marketers, advertisers and fans.
Robert Tuchman, president and founder of sports-marketing firm TSE, said he’d be more likely to eat at Hapa now, calling the ad smart and funny.
“People like to say, ‘Advertising doesn’t affect me.’ But it’s been proven to work. That’s why there is advertising,” Tuchman said.
The ad has the potential to offend, but marketer and researcher Bob Mazerov of Mazerov Research said that’s not the point.
“Anything that takes a step out of the ordinary has the potential of offending people,” he said. “And if it does, they’re probably not the kind of people who would be in the audience for that restaurant anyway.”
Charles and Ruth Drake of Pittsburgh, 67 and 65, respectively, called the ad honest but didn’t say they would eat at Hapa because of it. The couple were at SportsFan on the 16th Street Mall looking for baseball-related jewelry.
“If I were the baseball commissioner, I would kick Bonds out of the league and anyone else using steroids,” Charles Drake said.
Despite creating an ad that’s likely to get a reaction and have people criticizing Bonds, Schoenberg is sympathetic. But he and Van Grack couldn’t resist commenting on a major sports controversy.
“It’s unfortunate. It’s almost O.J. (Simpson)-like,” Schoenberg said. “When Bonds does travel and play golf, people are going to yell, ‘asterisk.”‘
Staff writer A.J. Miranda can be reached at 303-954-1381 or amiranda@denverpost.com.
