If you’re like me, you aren’t exactly thrilled when Erin, the pink-haired star of the odd Esurance commercials, invades your TV. I know I’m eagerly awaiting the day Erin and her barely-useful unnamed costar will be relegated to the TV Advertising Retirement Home, where they will stare off into space, let food dribble down their chins and, in their more lucid moments, join the Budweiser whassup guys in fondly remembering their glory days on the American airwaves.

(Official Mindreader accountant Buckley wonders about the target audience for those Esurance ads; he says they seem to be directed towards 12-year-old boys. And 12-year-old boys, of course, do not purchase car insurance. But that is a tangent.)

Within the stable of Erin Esurance commercials, there are sports-themed commercials for each of the four major sports: football, basketball, baseball and hockey. Since it’s playoff time and I’m watching plenty of sports, I am all too familiar with the Esurance sports commercials. Tonight was a Pistons playoff game, so I was inundated with Erin on the basketball court.

In the Esurance basketball commercial, Erin is struggling to defeat large (seriously, they must be 20 feet tall) robots who have the audacity not just to completely disrespect the small flying referee, but also to sport 1970s-style headbands, wristbands and facial hair while they’re at it. With only a few seconds left in the game, Erin’s coach — the aforementioned barely-useful unnamed costar, who seems to have embraced the 1970s facial hair theme — draws up a magical game-ending play named “Quote, Buy, Print.” The ever-perky Erin struts onto the court, baffles the audacious robots with off-the-hook basketball moves and dunks the ball to win the game. (In a particuarly amusing moment, as she is flying towards the hoop, her ponytail holder pops off, thus freeing her hair to be glamorous. Apparently she could not truly win without being an animahottie.)

Thanks to the NCAA basketball tournament, I’ve seen that commercial far too many times; however, this time, something caught my eye. There seemed to be an extra element in the commercial: later in the commercial, as Erin is soaring through the air to confront the last remaining giant robot, I thought I spotted a familiar team logo on her uniform. But I wasn’t completely sure, so while I waited for the commercial to air again (truly, something I never thought I would actually want), I checked the commercial Esurance offers on its website:

And when the commercial aired again a few minutes later, I took a picture of that same part of the commercial (I apologize for the poor picture quality; photographing a TV is problematic anyway, and the station does not come in particularly clearly for us):

When I saw the second picture, my suspicions were confirmed: to localize the commercial for the Detroit area, not only did they change her blue, green and white Esurance uniform to a red, white and blue Pistons uniform, but they added the Pistons wordmark on her jersey. They even removed the Esurance logo on her shorts and added a Pistons P. And if they made that effort for Detroit, I presume other NBA markets received a similar treatment.

I still won’t shed a tear when Esurance ends this campaign, but really, that attention to detail is pretty cool. Especially because that detail really isn’t that noticeable (unless you’re strange like me). So, Esurance: well done.

And Erin Esurance: go away.