Euro 2008: The Ads
Posted by gwil on June 7, 2008
Oh, FIFA/UEFA! You clever boys. Thanks to an ingenious little clause in your TV deal for the World Cup/European Championships the BBC and ITV have to show all of Euro 2008 on their terrestrial channels (BBC1 and ITV1), without the ratings boon the England games would have brought. So now we have the delicious prospect of ITV clearing their Saturday night ratings bonanza for Greece vs Russia, or BBC shunting aside the beloved Apprentice for Switzerland vs Turkey. They must be absolutely crushed! Fantastic!
The two networks are at least putting on a brave face, with advertising campaigns that look to entice the casual football fan otherwise unaware of Euro 2008’s existence. The Beeb have gone for the slogan ‘Who Will You Support’, with an accompanying ad where the general public pick their chosen team for the tournament. A decent idea, you might think. Unfortunately, instead of finding a charismatic, friendly bunch of folk, Auntie has instead managed to round up society’s Untermenschen, from the bluetooth-wearing cretin with the foghorn voice screaming “Viva la France”, to the sweaty fucktard at the skate park, siding with Romania because “it would be funny”. Someone even makes a joke about “liking a bit of Totti” despite the fact that a) Totti isn’t even at Euro 2008 and b) that joke wasn’t funny the first time that Mark Lawrensen spluttered it out back in ‘98. 1898. The nadir of this exhibition of c**tishness is the gormless wonder choosing France because “it’s the closest country to us”. As moronic as that statement is, it’s the way he delivers it that infuriates; a blank, dead eyed expression on his vacuous little face. He seems to be having a haircut, but it may very well be a lobotomy.
ITV have gone for a more subtle, symbolic approach, dealing with complex issues of love and loss… Ok, it’s a man, he’s going out with a football. I know. Crazy! He does all sorts of romantic, ‘coupley’ things with it, with the implication that he’s off home later to give its valve a right good seein’ to. Then disaster strikes. As the ball is crossing the street, an onrushing car crushes its spherical little frame. The man weeps for his lost love, cradling its tiny, punctured corpse as Clive Tyldsley squawks away about England’s failure in the background. But, thank Christ, all is not lost, because the advert ends with the man spotting a poster for Euro 2008. The ball in the poster is glossier, more seductive, fitter, than his old ball. A cheeky grin spreads across our man’s face. Everything’s going to be all right.
So far, so wretched. But wait, there’s one final participant in this great Euro 08 ad war. It’s Sky, who, despite having no part in Euro 2008, have made an commercial about it. In many ways it’s a lot like ITV; deflated footballs, rain, pasty-faced Brits with lugubrious expressions. But, unlike ITV, it’s brilliant. What the Machiavellian genii at Sky have done is made an advert which says, “Pah, this Euro 2008 lark is rubbish without England, isn’t it? So don’t watch it. That’s right, lob your TV out of the window. Kick over that water bottle onto the Radio Times so that it smudges the listings and you don’t know what games are on. Sob uncontrollably. But just think; in a few short months the Premier League will be back. Remember the Premier League? Remember its warm embrace? Remember Richard Keys and Jamie Redknapp with their gumdrop smiles? That’s it, come back. You always do…” And that’s Sky in a nutshell, basically. A meticulously organised league of international supervillains, calmly and quietly filling our ears with lovely tales of gingerbread houses and Chuppa-Chup lampposts, while diodes are strapped to the insides of our retinas and our organs are harvested for cold, hard cash. Murdoch wins again!
Linkage
-Slaven Bilic is writing a daily column for The Independent throughout the Euros. This is his first article.
