My shots Monday: World Cup Wonders
With Germany crowned kings, shots breaks down the tournament’s marketing highlights and key events.
Germany were crowned kings of world football last night as Mario Götze’s late goal in extra time secured the nation’s fourth World Cup and marked the first time a European country has won the tournament in South America.
Football fever was everywhere leading up to the finals with fans across the globe playing host to Brazilian-themed barbecues, parties and screenings of the games. In Adland, FilmBrazil’s day party at the Pierre Cardin Bubble House in Cannes got the festivities going, Grand Central Recording Studios hosted a series of open air screenings on its rooftop billed as Rio on the Roof, and at shots HQ, people piled into the courtyard to watch as the England team fell at the first hurdle. But before a ball had been kicked, agency Africa launched the marketing for a limited edition beer from Brahma, made at the Brazilian national team’s training camp that captured the hearts of fans.
Lionel Messi was named player of the tournament but the rest of the top stars seen in most of the marketing leading up to the event were dead and buried in the group stages if their team even qualified, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Andrés Iniesta.
They were all brought to life in two commercials for Nike, one adopting a CG approach with direction from Ringan Ledwidge and the other surfacing in animated form with Passion Pictures taking the reins on the project through Wieden+Kennedy Portland. The campaign promised a lot from the stars but in reality it was young talents such as Columbia’s James Rodriguez who stole the show by winning the prestigious Golden Boot award.
Another name on everyone’s lips in the knockout stages was Uruguay’s Luis Suarez, who stole the headlines for the wrong reasons after biting Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini. Receiving a ban from the tournament and the game altogether for a period of four months, the only positive to come from the incident was a remake of online viral video Charlie Bit My Finger, this time with the striker’s head included.
As expected, social media played a big part in the tournament coverage and reaction with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram contributing to the news, comment and imagery from the finals. No one expected Brazil to be humiliated by champions Germany in a fascinating semi-final, the most discussed sporting event ever on Twitter prompting a phenomenal 35.6 million tweets. The social media platform had launched its first-ever TVC leading up to the tournament and encouraged its users to post hashflags – emoticon flags for participating countries – whenever mentioning a team.
For UK fans mental images of presenter Adrian Chiles in shorts and flip flops on Cococabana Beach will be hard to erase but it was Christ the Redeemer, the famous landmark overlooking Rio de Janeiro, which stole the show on Instagram throughout the tournament.
Tipped to shine for Brazil was young star Neymar Jr and the young talent lived up to the hype by leading his team to the semi-finals with four important goals. However, his competition was cut short when he found himself colliding with Columbia’s Juan Zuniga in the quarter finals. At least the star was fit to appear in R/GA’s much-talked about ad for Beats By Dre, which saw him preparing for The Game Before the Game by zoning out with the brand’s headphones to listen to advice from his beloved father.
With Brazil’s capitulation in the shocking 7-1 drubbing by the Germans a host of marketing companies jumped at the chance to take advantage of the surprise result. A viral video saw the game summed up in an ad launched by Radio Bayern.
Various Photoshopped images emerged depicting Christ the Redeemer in different poses, the strongest showing the figure with his head in his hands after the loss. But Italian broadband provider Fastweb went one further by ‘relocating’ the monument to Naples, much to the surprise and entertainment of locals in Piazza Dante.
Aside from all the ads, discussion and hype surrounding the event, at the end of the day it was Germany who had the last laugh as they romped to victory in extra time over Argentina leaving them sick as a parrot. The general feeling is that the team deserved the triumph for playing the best football overall. In the last few games of their tournament, Germany had been described as “an efficient, well-oiled machine” countless times and it’s a feeling captured perfectly in Mercedes’ World Cup contribution which sees some of the nation’s stars appear alongside the German motor set to Rudimental’s uplifting Not Giving In soundtrack. The seamless commercial, directed by Alex & Liane, is a fitting tribute to a deserving winner and sums up a great tournament in 2014.
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