Arnold catches Posada for ESPN ad campaign

Mix soap opera stars and Major League Baseball players in volatile videos, and what have you got? A new ad campaign for the ESPN sports network created by Boston ad agency Arnold Worldwide.

The campaign is titled "Endless Drama," and its first ad features the dreaded Yankee Jorge Posada in the demanding role of a barroom bouncer trying to police some famous and unruly patrons.

That ad began airing on ESPN earlier this week, said Arnold executive creative director Roger Baldacci, who noted that the campaign also features the likes of baseball stars Chase Utley along with ABC soap opera stars such as Bree Williamson and Rebecca Budig. (ESPN and ABC share a corporate parent in Walt Disney Co.)

According to Baldacci, ESPN sees the potential of generating additional revenue by encouraging sports TV viewers to sign up to play free fantasy baseball, fantasy football, and other fantasy sports on its websites.

Arnold is one of several ad agencies that ESPN uses, and Arnold's responsibilities include Fantasy Baseball, Fantasy Football, and other ESPN online properities.

Part of Arnold's job is to drive traffic to those websites. Higher traffic, of course, makes those websites more attractive to companies that want to advertise on them.

The Posada ad not only introduces the campaign, but it also urges the ESPN viewers who see it on TV to check out subsequent episodes of this pot-boiling saga online at endlessdrama.com; unlike a TV ad, online episodes can run as long as two minutes.

Fantasy baseball isn't as popular as fantasy football, Baldacci said. A 16-game National Football League regular season can seem manageable to the same fantasy fan who might be daunted by baseball's 162-game schedule.

The "Endless Drama" campaign aims to convey the notion that a fantasy fan's Major League season can be as fraught with excitement, deception, and action as a steamy soap opera, Baldacci said.

Arnold is charged with doing all advertising of ESPN's fantasy offerings, Baldacci said, and the hope is that fantasy will evolve into a big business. Already there is fantasy basketball and fantasy hockey, he said, "There's even fantasy fishing."

So far, ESPN and Arnold aren't contemplating ads for fantasy fishing just yet.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)