Football sells. In fact, it may be in danger of overtaking sex as the ultimate attention grabber. Over the past decade the sport has seen an inexorable expansion of its appeal and is now one of the only national events to transcend boundaries of class, age and, increasingly, gender. No wonder advertisers love it.
When the Renault Clio, the ultimate women's car brand, hires Arsenal striker Thierry Henry to front its advertising, it might be time for the shrinking bunch of non-football fans to admit defeat.
For the past six months, everyone from Coca-Cola and McDonald's to the Nationwide building society has been trying to cash in on World Cup fever.
"I know a lot of people still moan about it but it's one of the few events that has true mass appeal, so it makes for very soft ground to connect with people," says Nick Bell, executive creative director of Leo Burnett.
"Having said that, I think this year's output has been disappointing. I don't see too many people being different. I still think Nike's Good versus Evil is one of the best football ads of all time, but Tarsem made that six years ago. As far as I can see, Nike is still doing the same thing in their ads, repeating the same formula of hiring in some expensive football stars and having them kick a ball around."
The iconic Good versus Evil ad, which saw a team of footballing greats captained by Eric Cantona pit their skills in combat against a team of demons and monsters, was made in 1996 and kick-started the current trend for ads that bring together the biggest footballing stars of the moment.
This year Nike has produced a glossy and hugely expensive film in which Cantona presides over a secret football tournament held on a disused cargo ship. Directed by Terry Gilliam and packed with stars including Henry and Ronaldo, the film is impressive, but rather soulless.
"It's a good idea, but the advert got a bit confused with all the special effects and that strange Bladerunner-stylesetting," says Richard Flintham, joint creative director of Fallon, which does Umbro's advertising.
"My reaction was well, yeah, but can we just see some football now please -- it's nowhere near as good as Parklife where Cantona does that trick and you think, `I can't wait to get outside and try that one out.' As a football enthusiast, this sort of lost it for me."
Umbro, by contrast, has made a virtue out of being a no-nonsense football brand that doesn't, in Flintham's words, make pink tennis shoes. Recent poster ads have used plain shots of Umbro products with lines such as, "Your sister definitely hasn't got a tennis dress with this logo on it" and, "All Umbro products are manufactured in a leotard-free environment."
The approach has helped it stand out from the star-studded glamour of the Nike and Adidas World Cup campaigns, which have won few plaudits. This year's Adidas campaign, "Footballitis," about a group of scientists investigating a serious condition that causes players and fans to be gripped by obsessive football fever, has been given the thumbs down. Among the politer responses from the industry were: "Of course they've got footballitis, they're professional footballers -- tell me something I don't know," and, "It's not the freshest idea. I sort of knew that footballers were into football."
None of the creative directors we spoke to mentioned an Adidas ad as their all-time football favorite, which goes to show that even a star like David Beckham isn't enough to make your brand stand out.
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