How To Sell The World Cup

After sharing / venting / ranting about the relationship between advertisement and the World Cup I though it's important that I attempt to sell the World Cup. Clearly I think the World Cup sells itself but there is nothing wrong with ancillary encouragement. 

1. When Local Becomes Global: Daniel Sturridge, Subway and Pele 

I concede that Subway is no athlete's diet, their sandwiches taste disgusting and Pele is the oldest football whore in the planet, however this advert has a cheapness, a sense of humor and Daniel Sturridge. If you had told Daniel Sturridge at the end of last season that he would star for England at the World Cup and also a World Cup Subway advert he would have laughed. Now  Subway is below him in the fast food chain and he will be looking to cement himself as the Premier League's best striker and a lucrative three year deal with McDonalds.

2. The International Advert with No Pretensions: Hyndai - Get In

This advert is so unashamedly uncool and  so cheap despite selling a luxury car you have to love it. Advertising is so slick these days made by St Martins and Goldsmith students, using alternative forms of music and culture, but the World Cup offers the opportunity to bring advertisement back to basics. Unlike the the International Football blockbusters that features 30 minutes of footballers fighting aliens and directed by known Hollywood stars this advert is only 59 seconds. Clearly its designed to play anywhere in the World working off the trans-language premise everyone wants to get in fast car and go to the World Cup.

3. Expanding The World Through Football Hoardings: A Hamby Meat Mystery.

Advertisement is not meant to teach you anything but sell you a product, however international football hoardings do teach us about the global economy. For example I never new Johnson Baby Oil is multi-billion international brand till this World Cup, that baby must produce a lot of oil. Often you find a brand that intrigues you as you are unsure who / what / where it is. Hamby: Quality Meat had me intrigued as it populated the majority of stadiums but did not specifies the type of meat it was selling. Maybe horse! Maybe a meze of meats combined or a genetically modified animal free meat grown from a Petri dish.Sadly none of my guesses were as boring as the answer, its a type of sliced beef to go in a Uruguayan sandwich, a cross between a thin sliced steak being eaten like a hamburger. Preferred not knowing as the intrigue made me survive Greece against Japan.

4. When Football Goes Viral: Americans Created Advertising

The most heart warming advert campaign was team USA, they put in some great performances against Ghana, Portugal, Belgium and won themselves a lot of fans. The fans themselves were like a growing flash mob of fancy dress, that if seen on YouTube it would make me despair for the future of humanity, but in the context of a football stadium, they made my heart pound with hope for the future of football. When fans become their own marketers you know you are on to a winner. 

5  But all best advertisement is improvised...

Social media has been all over the World Cup and it creates the illusion of living in the now when actually a huge amount of celebrities, footballers, companies orchestrate their tweets and Facebook profile. I am not one for constantly online chatting during a match but its definitely for the majority of fans fused with the live experience of watching football. The constant rolling media I feel take me away from the now but their is no denying that access to record and document the World Cup has not enhanced my enjoyment. For example I would never been able to enjoy this....

So Netherlands play Brazil tonight in the third place runner up competition and nobody cares! Anyone who has been reading the blog will know they have been my two least favorite teams but after Brazil's recent tragedy I hope they can find some pride to beat the dutch and somehow wipe that smug smile of Van Gaal's Man U face. 

How Not To Sell The World Cup

When I tell people I am taking four weeks off work to watch the World Cup, most people look at me with a pleasantly surprised face and contemplate how I can afford to travel to Brazil and enjoy the World Cup with so many tourists. Quickly I correct them, stating I am simply taking the days off to watch every match from the comfort of my sofa. Surprise  turns to shock as they realize that this "hipster / nerd / nerdster" is not using the World Cup as a reason to travel the world but actually loves football and wants to watch every kick. You see I do not fit the cliche World Cup demographic,despite my claims that everyone does. So many of us who watch the World Cup fall short of this globalized mass consuming brand and hate the associations that are cast over our love for the game (TM Nike). 

So in the spirit of defiance let me highlight this World Cup's worse advertising offenders as I present "How not To Sell The World Cup."

1.All Advertisement is Propaganda:  Vauxhall Football #StandTogether TV Advert

My God this is a terrifying advert! England fans literally appear off a Vauxhall conveyor belt, in accordance to the most overblown voice over in living memory, offset by a dirge of sentimental violins, fitting for a state funeral. The advert has a distinct lack of sarcasm and irony that often saves most patriotic adverts but instead we are treated to a corporate call to arms. Vauxhall even mocks my favorite national treasure, cynicism, in favor of totalitarianism. The irony being that nobody looks like they are standing together due to all the air brushing, not even the England players look like they spent the same day in the studio. This is Cameron's Britain after he gets rid of Scotland, all united in royal tax avoiding corporatedom!

2. Curse of being A Celebrity: Steven Gerrard and Lucozade Sport 

First, Benedict Cumberbatch should not being doing voice overs for Lucozade - all highly paid actors should leave that work for real jobbing actors. Stop being greedy Sherlock! As for Stevie G.... this advert feels like a curse. The director appears inspired by Gerrard's famous slip at Ainfield that lost Liverpool the title this year and killed all momentum for the national side. We watch his physical body slip away into a puddle only to come to be resurrected through the manna of sponsorship  known as Lucozade. This advert does not inspire instead it tempts fate! The voice over goads the natural elements of Manaus, its corporate idols facing off against the ancient gods of nature. You did not need to watch England Italy to know what was going to happen just read the Bible.

3. Football Global Blockbuster: Ronaldo, Messi and Roony Fight Aliens for Samsung

Be warned this is an exstremely long advert and I will feel guilty if you watch it from start to finish...

And that is only part one. I think their is at least half an hour's worth of footage of Ronaldo and Messi fighting aliens through football. The match episode features dead eyed virtual avatars of  said players competing against giant animatronic aliens making you feel your playing a computer game without a control pad. This type of blockbuster advert no longer exists in television, the cost is too high to show the complete 5 minutes let alone the half hour opus. Thanks to the Internet this advert exists and television will only get 30 second incomprehensible snippet of Ronaldo and Messi dressed as space batmen. To be fair the entire five minutes has serious continuity issues so at least 30 seconds reduces the embarrassment. The blockbuster football advert was pioneered by Nike and Adidas but we have now reached new lows with world's greatest players attempting to sell you a phone through a tired SciFi blockbuster narrative. Again all the humor seems to have been air brushed out of the production with no dialogue spoken for fear of culturally alienating a potential consumer. Ironic that the lack of humor and identity makes the farcical venture into an  alienating experience for everyone watching. The advert is such a ridiculous waste of money, it calls into question who is the advert aimed towards, and the answer is no one, which means in "global billionaire marketing speak", everyone. 

4. Football is Stalking You -All or Nothing: Adidas Bus Campaign

For the last six weeks I  and the majority of Londoners have been followed by black buses decorated with the faces of brooding/bored footballers making opaque threats like "fear or be feared," "now or never," "hunt or be hunted,""all in or nothing." I have seen people get on and get off these buses and I no longer trust them as branded indoctrinated masses. If you look closely at Danny Alves or Mesut Ozil's face and you will notice he has new brand of digital tattooed leprosy. When branding becomes tattooing we can't be that far from liquidation. Seriously! People are paranoid enough in London they don't need Luis Saurez face lurking on some street corner with menacing computer generated disease over his face, it won't sell any trainers it will just keep children awake at night.

 

5. "You Footballing on The Bet,"- Digital Betting on Your Mobile

It's not the stomach turning laddy advert campaign of Ladbrooks, the smugness of William Hill or even the virtual room of Ray Winstons giving me the odds at half time that upsets me. Its not  placing a bet on a match and being financially invested in  supporting a team and reaping a cash award. Its the bloody betting during the match I hate. Betting used to be romantic! Making your pledge before the game, signing away your allegiance to a team, a real commitment. Now you can get married and divorced five times over 90 minutes. Switching your bets through an accumulator you can not only can support the other team but can change the bet entirely, betting on the number of corners or if someone is going to be sent off. Using digital technology to bet is an endlessly speculative entertainment thoughout match; I am sure it will contribute to the next global financial meltdown. Sadly this new form of betting has got people watching the World Cup who would not and I don't want to ostracize a new audience. I simply just want to put them in a room together to watch the game so they can talk betting and I can watch the match in peace, safe in the knowledge that I have locked the doors, thrown away the key and started a small fire just outside the only exit. 

Everyone knows marketing is the 8th sin but I will make a vein attempt tomorrow to readdress the balance by writing How To Sell World Cup.