The A-League marketing campaign for the inaugural season is finally underway!
All the teams have launched new web sites, and the FFA has commenced splashing its TV spot over the networks. The 60 second A-League commercial is available for download. (17 MB)
Well, what about the slick advertisement, which according to the Herald Sun has reportedly cost $1.2 million to produce and another couple of million to place on broadcast TV, Foxtel and in cinemas for the duration of the season? While there is definitely a 'Nike shoe commercial' element to the shooting and editing style, there's also a feeling that the available talent for such a carnivalesque display is a touch meek ... Aloisi and Ferrante ain't Ronaldo and Figo, so the ball skills leave a little to be desired. We're treated to a couple of golden heel-tapping moments, but really, what is the level of difficulty for lazily kicking a ball against a wall, or performing a few step-overs on asphalt, or flicking a dead ball into the air and putting it well out of reach of a follow-up juggle (enter the 'magic' of film editing)?! Come on lads! Even Harry's behind-the-leg penalty kick in that British "I call my boss, Sir" commercial was a sparkling move in comparison to Aloisi's flashy but clearly way-over-the-top-of-the-bar scissor kick. Dig?
Another minor issue: where is Dwight Yorke? Shengqing Qu? Shin Tae-yong? Richard Kitzbichler? Or even (relatively unknown, but still a Swiss ex-national at youth level) Remo Buess? What's the point of talking big about the putative high profile international players the league has attracted if the FFA is not even going to use them in its key promotion? Of course, it just clarifies what we all already know but don't really want to admit: that aside from Yorke we actually haven't attracted any truly impressive stars of the game. (Archie Thompson fans need to point to more than an Aurelio Vidmar-like goal scoring season in Belgium to impress me otherwise.) The bulk of the league will be made up of more or less the same players we have been accustomed to seeing in the old NSL. By the numbers players like Craig Deans and Andrew Clark are the Joe Averages of the league. How many of us can imagine them cast in a strictly glamorous light?
Heck, even Kevin Muscat probably deserved a place in the league's big marketing push: why can't we see Kevin applying his 'talent' in the TV ad? Just picture Kev sliding into Aloisi, studs up; an orgasmic slow-motion lunge that smashes Talay's fibula between boot and concrete. Yeah, baby! While such an image might sound horrifying rather than pleasurable, it has to say something that Muscat has legions of fans everywhere in this country. Coach Merrick is one of them, and he was willing to go so far as to make Muscat the club captain (i.e. someone to set the proper example for other players, the media, the fans). In reality, everyone knows you need a few goons like Muscat around, but pragmatically the FFA wants everything to remain as falsely squeaky-clean as possible.
Overall, however, congrats to the FFA for having the balls to (let's face it) copy Nike's shamelessly mass-market approach to advertising, for using borderline criminal behaviour (graffiti) as a vehicle for attracting the attention of the "core youth market," and for saturation spamming the damn object of discussion, as well as the league's faux spray-paint logo, apparently everywhere.
Now we wait: the FFA has successfully built 'it' (an image), but will they (the supporters) come?
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