Ideas will travel » Worldcup

The Curse of Nike

mario.gamper — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:02:37 +0000

Drogba! Cannavaro! Rooney! Ribery! Ronaldo! Ronaldinho!

These are – in order of appearance – the superstars of this year’s Nike world cup commercial. And those 3 minutes are the only place in the space time continuum they will rule this year. As of this Sunday, they are all out of the tournament! And we’re not even talking semifinals.

Not only did those players not write history… they actually left their pens at home. Some of them did not show up, some were invisible, and some were embarassing.

I am actually wondering if those guys started believing they’re as shiny-good as their TV-ad doppelgangers. From time to time, you could see a frustrated Ronaldo doing triple scissors in the middle of the pitch for no apparent reason whatsoever. Or attempting a freekick goal from 40 meters out.

“The time has come for players to carve their name in history. One touch, tackle or free kick could crush a nation’s hopes or cause them to build a statue in your honor.” NIKE

Am I really blaming the ad? I know, less than four weeks ago, I said this commercial was beautiful and full of truth. But maybe, there’s too much truth. Maybe Nike’s commercial has increased the pressure on the players beyond breaking point. Trying to achieve immortality is a very tough job. It’s probably easier to achieve if you don’t have to watch a better clone of yourself doing it on TV.

Either way, the new ad does mark the end of a long stretch of ads that weren’t focused on individual superhuman-succes. Starting with the famous 1998 worldcup commercial, Nike instead celebrated the playfulness of the beautiful game: in an airport, in a locker room, in team buses, or even directly in the belly of the stadium, minutes before the game. In hindsight, that now looks like a more flexible strategy.

But there’s still good news for Nike: They also made an ad with Robinho. But even that’s might turn out to be a difficult sell. If any one in the Brazilian team is writing history, it’s Dunga – and his defensive henchmen Lucio & Joan. They have turned Brazil’s penalty area into a no go zone for their opponents. But by far the most impactful force on the Brazilian team has been Kaka’s elbow. Time for a commercial?

The Worldcup, according to Twitter!

mario.gamper — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:10:27 +0000

The Guardian has given us a beautful visualization-animation of the Twitter hum during the world cup games: Twitter Replay.

While quite charming to watch, it also shows that live coverage might be a field of communication where Twitter gives us very little additional value: It’s basically the referees’s game report, pretyped by the multitude. No new insights seem to be trending here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/world-cup-match-replay

This seems intuitive. The game is faster than its trends. Or, to be more precise… a goal is not trending. It’s happening.

But of course, the poverty of visible twittered insight is further amplified by the concept behind the Guardian’s visualization. As an aggregation tool, it necessarily bulldozes over the details. And that’s of course where Twitter shines. So if there was – let’s say – a really interesting discussion regarding Jogi Löw’s new Strenesse sweater, the Guardian’s animation would surely miss it.

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=jogi+pulli

Nevertheless. Thank you Guardian, for this beautiful tool to pry open the cranium of the social web.

Football for Hope: FIFA goes Social Advertising

mario.gamper — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:00:36 +0000

In the dark ages before facebook, “Social Advertising” meant ads for good causes. The new FIFA campaign “Football for Hope”, that is flickering on stadium advertising screens during the world cup games in South Africa, is social in this old school sense. If the world hadn’t been vuvuzelaed into catatonic stupor, some among the tv-audience might even have googled it.

What they would have found is a FIFA supported effort to establish a combination of football and education facilities in communities that are usually too poor to afford either.

I had the chance to talk to Mike Geddes, the Football for Hope project manager who is working for streetfootballworld, the NGO that FIFA has teamed up with to organize Football for Hope. What I find rather interesting, is that FIFA made all the major sponsors participate in Corporate Social Responsibility projects, without prescribing what each and everyone could do. The Siyakhona project that I visited, is part of Sony’s commitment.

Most of the interview is about the steps involved in finding the right sponsor for something like Siyakhona. But of course, I also had to aske Mike about the option of using Corporate Social Responsibility campaigns to create advertising. :-)

BTW: Here is FIFA’s official page. (Who designed this?)

http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/worldwideprograms/footballforhope/index.html

Truth and Beauty.

mario.gamper — Fri, 21 May 2010 10:51:09 +0000

A new Nike ad is revving people up for the World Cup. While it has some shoe porn in it, it is all about the truth that makes the World Cup the world’s greatest tournament: History will be made -- in a split second.

Thanks, Nike.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=idLG6jh23yE

(There you go, Jim. Didn’t take 15 mins. for Nike to prove you right. :-)