Over the course of the next few weeks, the team here at Access will be sharing their thoughts on the appearances made by sportsmen and women in television advertising. Be it in failure or success there is no escaping the pulling power these sports personalities have, guaranteeing a long line of brands queuing up to pay for their somewhat inadequate services. As always we’d love to hear from you if you either agree or disagree or just want to make your suggestions.
Nothing depresses me more than a television advert featuring the sporting icons I grew up watching play football selling me something completely unrelated. Purely for the complete and utter car crash content coupled with the acting skills of a newt. Clearly channeling their 'inner Bogart' these athletes try their hardest to seem genuinely interested in what they are being paid to promote. I always end up feeling sorry for the company who has paid for their services.
Southgate's Paper Bag
Who can forget the trio of penalty kick failures Pearce, Waddle and Southgate selling us Pan Crust Pizza. For Southgate, the most recent of penalty failures at the time, the embarrassment begins immediately with Pearce and Waddles 'hilarious' miss puns. His saving grace for the most part is that his head is covered with a paper bag, but this is short lived. Leaving the table, Southgate walks into a wall. Cue cries of 'This time he's hit the post' from messrs Waddle and Pearce. Gross. Cheers Mr Copywriter. Still, I do love deep pan pizza.
Gazza in tears
False praise is also reserved for Mr Paul Gascoigne, his cameo in the Gary Lineker franchised Walkers crisps advert is another reason for footballers to stay on the field. Those of you who remember the advert will recall Gazza shamelessly attempting to steal a few of Lineker's crisps. Following a goal Gazza finally gets his mitts on the crisps, only for Lineker to crush his fingers. Gazza then begins to squirt horrifically fake tears all over the crowd whilst Lineker gleefully continues to eat his crisps. My concerns here are for Gazza. Clearly he felt it acceptable to portray himself as a potato chip thief as well as parody his 'actual' tears following his booking in the Italia 90 semi-final. Not great.
Airport Antics
There was a glimpse of brilliance, the Brazilian world cup squad of 1998 teamed up with Nike. They samba-ed their way around an airport, making genius passes and showing true Brazilian flair… only to hit the post with the final shot of the ad. Strangely the player responsible for the miss, Ronaldo, had a fantastic world cup tournament scoring for fun…until the final when a mystery illness preceded a rather subdued performance as France ran out 3-0 winners. Strange.
Finally, after years of waiting and hoping for an advert to prove that there is life after sport for my idols of old, hope was restored.
"Of course, Oui"
Eric Cantona, bedazzingly bearded, fantastically French and outstandingly obnoxious appeared on my TV screen during half time of an unnamed premier league game a couple of weeks ago. Immediately I sat up, eyebrows raised with a slight feeling of impending doom. Not King Eric, I thought. A man, who I will unashamedly admit, covered my bedroom walls on posters from Match and Shoot magazine. A man who karate kicked that Palace fan and received a lengthy ban only to return and score against Liverpool. A true hero of mine, not for the karate kick-just in general. Could this man now be added to my list of poor performing former premiership players in advertising? I watched on in terror.
61 seconds later.
Brilliance, sheer and utter brilliance. The parody of all parodies. From the farmer on his tractor being stalked by the paparazzi to the farmer getting hops tattooed on his back. From the cascading hops into the truck to the bleached Mohawk. Cantona seemingly reveling in his storytelling occasionally stops and gives the camera a 'look'. This look for me is the essence of the advert. It’s the same look he gave following that sublime chip against Sunderland. It’s the look which instantly made me want to watch it again and again. Bravo monsieur, bravo.
"excuse moi, are you a farmer?"
"Of course, Oui"
The Look.
I'm off for a pint of Kronenbourg.
Au Revoir.
