The beautiful game…

It’s not long before Football’s (Soccer for some) greatest competition arrives once again and with it, the advertising. It’s the four yearly tradition for some to actually watch a full ninety minutes of the beautiful game. Just over four weeks of shouting (outwardly or inwardly) at the screen. Dormant fans brush off their team’s colours and wear them with pride.

It will bring a whole raft of pub conversations for the next few years along with some great back page (or front page) headlines…

Adidas and Nike have a large stake in the event, others just tag along for the ride.

Another attraction of the World Cup is the advertising, how the world ties their products to a competition to build their brand or sell their product. Organisations like adidas and Nike have a large stake in the event, others just tag along for the ride. This is where we used to look at the offering from these two for 2014. However, the ads have been taken down now.

The ad from Adidas – The Dream: all in or nothing features Messi, Dani Alves, Luis Suarez, Robin van Persi, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Xavi and more. But the I think the exclusive track from Kanye West puts this ad ahead of the crowd.

When you view the ad online it ends up asking the same question (as the ad is putting forward) to the audience: all or nothing. If you click ‘all in’ you’ll apparently be “connected to everything Adidas has to offer” for the duration of the 2014 Fifa World Cup by following the adidas ‘hashtags’ on Twitter. If you click ‘nothing’ then you get silence. It’s a bit of an odd ending really, because as a viewer I think there is a bit more ‘grey’ out there.

Nike’s ad is another classy offering which is all around ‘risk everything’. It takes you back to playing football as a kid (with your own commentary as you ran down the wing), but with a slight twist. This advertising actually swaps the kids with the star players they represent.

Cramming the 4 minute video full of enough stars to shake a large branch at. I can’t name them all (really I can’t), but the list includes: Cristiano Renaldo, Neymar Jr and Wayne Rooney.

Both ads bring a different side of the game, both are slick. Though there are some similarities between the two campaigns. Mainly in the taglines – ‘All In Or Nothing’ from adidas and Nike’s ‘Risk Everything’.

In some ways it’s kind of obvious, if you’re playing a sport then you really need to put you all into it. Win or lose; as long as you ‘commit’, that’s all you can ask. The England team need to take heed of both ads!

The England team need to take heed of both ads!

I think the big difference between the two ads is pace. Nike’s is full of slick changes and enough players (even the Hulk and a postman) to fill a couple of team buses with and it is so loooong. But it is full of humour and it does put across the passion that an after school ‘coats as posts’ kick-around has (but with proper goals in this instance). On the other hand Adidas’s film, has depth. It’s much shorter, but it does lacks the humour.

Both the ads are great, but I think the Nike one could grow a little tiring after a while. However, the campaign probably has ‘legs’ (excuse the pun) – The Adidas ‘all or nothing’ button worries me a little.

As for the World Cup itself, I will dig out my England shirt (it’s vintage) and watch the matches, though because of timing the customary ‘kick-around’ may need to be before rather than after… Brasil will probably win, but watch for out for the Belgians!

Puur delivers branding including brand driven advertising that delivers against business needs. All our work is developed with the final audience and end objectives in mind. Our work isn’t just pretty pictures, our work solves a challenge set by you. give us a call today for a chat about how we can help.

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2014, advertising, brazil, Football, World Cup
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