Cartoon Campaign Promotes Detroit Pistons

Paying tribute to the seventies cartoon "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids," Minneapolis-based Olson + Co. has created a new ad campaign for the Detroit Pistons. The ad campaign, called "Interplanetary Pistons," consists of two minute spots (which can be viewed from the Piston's website) that mirror the look and feel of the "Cosby" cartoon and aim to portray millionaire basketball players as appealing to regular homies in the hood.

Adrant queried an intern who worked at the agency during the creation of the campaign who said, "I interned at O+CO when this was just an arbitrary idea. I was sent all over the city to hunt down old tapes of Fat Albert episodes. No one thought the it would see the light of day, and now its making a buzz" The agency came to the realization that cartoons aren't just for kids.

Grownups like them too. "The mistaken stereotype is to say that animation is a child's treatment. That's really not true," said former Campbell Mithun CEO Howard Liszt.

The first spot debuted this week at the team's season opener and will also be shown on local Detroit TV and on the web. The videos compile a selection of NBA stars, such as Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming, as "guest villains" who go up against a group of "superhero" Pistons.

Olson + Co. has created nine of the videos so far.