If you’re involved in the production of beer, fast food or computer games it’s seriously important to your business. It makes the whole world jolt to stop, and head for the pub. And it only comes around once every four years. Yes, it’s the World Cup. Probably the only global sporting event to encourage behaviour so diametrically opposed to the fitness and skill played out on the pitch.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that where there is a large sporting event, there are advertisers. And the World Cup is perhaps the biggest of them all. Now I’m not dissing the Olympics - I could watch the Olympics all year long if you provided enough tea, biscuits and bed sore cushions. Everyone loves the Olympics. Go on, admit it; it brought a tear to your eye to see Michelle de Bruin (that’s de Bruin now, de Bruin, not Smith) bring home gold, despite the “unfortunate” aftermath and we all get irrationally over-excited about medals in show-jumping and coxless fours rowing.
Before the shit hit the fan
But I think we love the Olympics in the same way that we love the United Nations. We really like that it’s there. It provides a kind of fulcrum in our perception of the world and we’d be a little bit crushed if it were gone. But it doesn’t necessarily get the average person’s juices going.
The World Cup is a different kettle of fish. People are genuinely passionate about the World Cup. I’m quite gutted that Ireland haven’t qualified. Again. And I’m not a soccer fan in general , but it doesn’t matter because when it comes to the World Cup, everyone becomes a fan, if only for a month. Many people have said that the cultural confidence which lead to Ireland’s prosperity in the ‘90s (contributing, of course, to the bloated folly of the Celtic Tiger) can be directly attributed to two things; the Riverdance Eurovision intermission act in ’94 (yes really) and the Irish soccer team’s performance in Italia ‘90 and again in USA ’94. That is the power of the World Cup (and Michael Flatley’s silky blouse).
Olé Olé Olé Olé (repeat ad infinitum)
It’s this visceral passion and excitement that get advertisers interested. And it makes a huge difference to the bottom line of many businesses. I’ll bet the Vintners association were well-pissed off that we didn’t qualify, not to mention Aer Lingus. Big brands who have to plan their advertising campaigns months in advance have a lot riding on events like the World Cup. I’ve first hand experience of a global snack-food brand having to pull a campaign almost at the last minute because neither Ireland nor England qualified for the 2008 European Championship. That’s a lot of time and money wasted. And unsurprisingly, World Cup years are hugely important for the sportswear business - Adidas, who kit-out twelve of the 32 qualifying teams are relying on the sales generated from the World Cup to get the company back on track having been badly hit by the recession.
All of this clambering for a piece of the World Cup pie takes place in front of us in ads. Though this time round it seems a little more subdued than in other years. Maybe more ads will start airing this week, in which case I might do a follow up post, but as it stands I’ve seen big World Cup ads by just four major brands; Pepsi, Nike, Adidas and Pringles.
Having seen the above, my normally mild-mannered flatmate burst out “Why is it that Pepsi always make such shit football ads?”. Why indeed Gillian. They’ve obviously spent a shed-load of money on the TV commercial; it’s all sweeping camera shots from the air, pricey soccer star appearances from Messi, Kaka, Lampard, Ashavin, Drogba and (coughs loudly in disapproval) Henry and a soundtrack by R&B star Akon (I had never heard of him either). But I agree with Gill. It’s just so squeaky clean and happy-clappy that I don’t buy it. It’s more like a South African tourism board ad than one for a soft drink. And the acting, oh, the acting is terrible; Didier Drogba is as wooden as a wooden-thing. Pepsi always seem to do this; pay ridonculous amounts of money for celebrity endorsements (anyone remember the awfulness that was the Britney / Beyoncé / Pink gladiator ad?), give them a flat script and no acting lessons, chuck in a shot of the product at the end and think it’s going to work. Well, newsflash, it don’t. And those horrible Nelson-Mandela-shirt-in Pepsi-brand-colours they make the footballers wear are hideous.
Now, Nike on the other hand, Nike understand how to make football ads. I reckon that their Parklife ad from way back when in the ’90s is still one of the best football ads ever made.
Nike (or rather their advertising agency) understand that the game of football is all about drama both on and off the pitch. And thankfully they don’t generally make the footballers speak. Anyone who has heard David Beckham speak knows that this is a good thing.
Nike’s current World Cup ad is nothing if not dramatic. Watching the full length version on YouTube, I can actually feel adrenaline being released into my system. This is super dooper budget stuff, but boy is it worth it. In just over 3 minutes you travel around the world to see fans glued to their TV sets, you’re in the stadium with Ronaldinho showing off his fancy footwork, you’re taken to the rainy caravan site of Wayne Rooney’s nightmares, the TV-special of Canavarro’s dreams and watch Ronaldo at the premier of his would-be biopic. Throw in cameos from Roger Federer, Gael García Bernal, Homer Simpson and probably many others I didn’t even recognise and you get an idea of the scale of this thing. This ad is immense and has deservedly racked up almost 13 million views on YouTube alone.
As we mentioned earlier the World Cup is really important for Adidas. Which makes me wonder why their current ad has got very little to do with football. I’m talking about their Star Trek ‘Cantina’ ad which I haven’t actually seen on the telly but I believe has begun airing (correct me if I’m wrong here).
The fairly flimsy premise is that a whole bunch of celebs are watching the World Cup as per the classic Cantina Bar scene from the first / fourth Star Wars movie. Adidas have brought in a collection of individuals no less bizzare than the original bar dwellers; Ian Brown, Noel Gallagher, Ciara, Snoop Dogg and Daft Punk all feature. The only sporting personality is professional product horse footballer David Beckham. The campaign is for Adidas Originals, their ‘street’ rather than sports wear division so I’m presuming these people are supposed to represent being “original” in some way or other. The editing is seamless and it’s an interesting concept (and Snoop Dogg is deadly; “I don’t like you either fool!”) but the whole World Cup connection just doesn’t work and with the approach they’ve taken, I don’t know why they thought it would. Surely they know it takes more than a few super-imposed flat screens above the bar and soccer photos on the wall to get the idea across? I really hope they have a proper World Cup ad coming out because I don’t think this one is going to do the business for them.
The other major brand going all-out for the World Cup is Pringles with their Pringoooals ad (say what you will, but at least it’s catchy).
It doesn’t do too badly on the star factor either which lends credibility given that Pringles isn’t exactly a brand you immediately associate with soccer. Peter Crouch is the main man here and we’re urged to “join in the fun” on some Facebook page or other.
Not a bad ad. Too bad then that Pringles’ parent company P&G are tacking on a message and asking us to go to some god-awful website called Football-fun.co.uk. Urgh, That one word “fun” makes me itch. I really hate it when brands try to be fun as if it were a tangible quality. Invariably it comes across as cloying and childish. This type of “fun” apparently involves collecting points from special packs of your favourite (P&G) brands to redeem football-related free gifts. Sounds like a whole barrel of laughs doesn’t it? It’s the equivalent of collecting tokens for those GAA bowls from Kellogg’s Corn Flakes years ago (I had one, for Mayo since you ask). Nothing wrong with that, but it does seem like a bit of a cheap-ass ad and a cheap-ass World Cup association for a company this big and this rich. And collecting tokens is not “fun”, okay?
2010 will be the first year the World Cup has been hosted in Africa and this has been a major theme in most of the ads for the event. Media coverage of the African continent in the past has been so heavily weighted towards famine, bloodshed and disease that you can almost sense advertisers clambering over each other to portray positive images, away from the notion of “the dark continent”. It’s a hard balance to strike though; go too far and you end up where Pepsi are; in a heavily sanitized place where the people are stereotypically “simple, poor but happy”. That’s why I like the BBC’s promo for their World Cup coverage. They’ve got the balance right and using the theme of the “Rainbow Nation” they capture the diversity, colour and intensity of the World Cup experience. I don’t mind saying it’s brought a tear to my eye.
Roll on June 11th. Should be a good opening ceremony.
That Adidas ad is shocking. How you can splice a whole glut of slebs into a classic, cult scene & make it so bloody boring is beyond me. And Snoop Dogg acting the gangsta and cutting up the shop? Yawn.
Also, how have you never heard of Akon? That awful glurge “Lonely” was Number 1 all over 2005!
That Nike ad is brillant stuff, and yes, really gets the football excitment going. I do like the Adidas ad and it’s very well-made, but i agree it’s a bit vague on the whole World Cup message…more like an ad to celebrate a Star Wars re-release. I’m not a football fan either, but something about the World Cup always gets me clued to the box (though sadly of course, less so this time around) and makes me look forward to seeing the new ads. Great post!
Jaysis, I’ll have to look up that Akon song so Sweary. Thankfully I avoid hearing most of what’s in the charts by never listening to the radio between the hours of 8am and 8pm.