A Sucker at Heart

So I have an obsession.....

Inspirational sports commercials.

Love them. Get totally drawn in by them. They sometimes make me tear up a little.

Let's go a couple years back to the World Cup 2006. Gotta tell ya.....those were the best inspirational commercials I have ever seen. Especially the ESPN ones that U2 (particularly Bono) narrated. Every time I saw that ad about the Ivory Coast, I wanted to jump up and cheer, then go to The Sports Authority, buy a football, excuse me, soccer ball, and start training. (You know what....I am going to use "Football" instead of "Soccer" for the rest of this post. Makes me feel very international, if you will)

If you haven't seen it, or don't remember it here's the gist.....

They show a bunch of local people from the Ivory Coast gathered in a tiny building. They are clearly poor. The background and the people are looking a little war ravished. Then Bono starts talking about how there has been a civil war in the Ivory Coast for more than three years. However, this is the first year that the country has qualified for the World Cup. So, (and this is true, I remember looking it up when I saw the ad for the first time) in honor of this feat, and probably because none of the soldiers were going to want to fight, because everyone would want to watch their team play, the country did negotiate a ceasefire for the duration of the World Cup. Then, after explaining this, you see why all the people are gathered. They are waiting to watch the World Cup Team board the plane. The crowd is smiling, screaming in delight, and waving flags. Bono comes on and says "Everyone knows that a country united makes for better cheerleaders than a country divided" Awesome. The whole "Unites a country" thing because a theme for the entire series of ads. The only thing that would have make that story more moving is if Ivory Coast had won more than one game, or totally won the whole thing! Then it would have become a Disney movie.

I loved that commercial!!!! I have to be honest, not sure if it aired that much in the US, but I was in Canada and Poland for the majority of the World Cup. In Canada, the world cup ads were about every 4th commercial. In Poland, the only English channel we got (except for the Porn channel) was Eurosport. The football ads were every other commercial on that station. So, I saw a lot of them, from a lot of countries, and it was inspiring.

Here's a link to the whole series of ESPN ads that ran.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/archive/onegame/

Then click where it says ENTER. Then "view world cup ads". You can watch each of the 5 ads by clicking at the bottom.

My Favs....

1. Of course, the Ivory Coast one. You are made of stone if it doesn't bring a little tear to your eyes.

2. The "Anthem" one. It's overly dramatic, but I still love it. "All it takes is a ball" I have always believed that sports were a uniter. Be it between factions at war - The Ivory Coast example. A Country so divided they just need a common belief - Anyone heard of the US Hockey Team of 1980? Or just fathers and sons who have nothing in common, but a sport they can talk about. (Got this from City Slickers)



Now to the reason I started writing this blog today. I saw a commercial for the 2008 China Olympics. It sucked. There I said it. Morgan Freeman narrated it. Seriously? Is he the best we could do? The World Cup got Bono, and all the biggest sports festival in the world could get is the guy who drove Miss Daisy?

On the topic, why is this the only Olympic commercial I have seen? I want to see them all the time. I want to be moved to tears by the inspiring story. I want to be so rapped up by an amazing backstory that I learn about in a 30 second spot, that I want to watch the rifle shooting, or the badminton, or other lame events that call themselves a sport just to root on the underdog with the fight in his eyes put there by the last dying dream of his polio stricken formerly estranged, but now he's biggest fan, father. Where are those ads?

I'm a little disappointed. It's a huge sporting event. Where is the marketing? I know this sounds very generation X, American dream believing, need to be entertained every minute, and can't just be happy with the reporting and airing of the events, but I do love when I am inspired. I want to get behind an athlete, and I want to know his (or her) whole story. If it takes a commercial blip to make me google it, then so be it.

And I'm not alone. Others out there want to feel that inspiration, with its great rallying music. Afterall, think of Jerry Maguire. Everyone loved that movie. It was about sports, true, but was it really? That movie was about marketing. One of my favorite realizations in that film is what you are rooting at the end is not that Cuba Gooding Jr.'s team will go to the Superbowl, or even just win the game. You are rooting for him to personally have a great play on national TV, be a crowd favorite, then get a big contract, and some endorsements. But, everyone cheered when it happen. We don't even know if the Cardinals won the game or not. But, I was eating it up.

And you would think that this is the perfect time to play off our country's desire to be inspired. We need it right now. A well marketed US Olympic team could get everyone's mind off gas prices; the stock market; the morgage and foreclosure mess, and what is sure to be a brutal upcoming election season. What's a better time to be seeing that flag wave, and to come up with catchy slogans to get behind? Let's do what "One Game Changes Everything" did for the World Cup 2006.

So, people behind ads for the Olympics (NBC, Coke, and every other "official whatever of the Olympics")........ Time to move me. I want to care enough to tune in. Give me a reason to find a hero.....





P.S. Have to add this. Another World Cup commercial that I thought was so very creative was the Gatorade American World Cup Team ad. Terrific, and very topical for 2 years ago.

Summary: The song "take me out to the ballgame" is playing. They show all these images of Team USA. One of them is the team forced to have a security escort when they go through a city surrounded by protesters. Then, shots of all these Europeans with signs saying things like "Yanks Go Home". There is also this scene of the American team, in their uniforms, walking into a booing stadium with fans throwing things at them. The tagline at the end is "It's a whole new Ballgame." Loved it. Kudos to Gatorade.