A History Of Footballers And Ads
This article is from Pitch, a magazine that tells the stories of modern sport. You can find out more and get yourself a copy here.
In this piece, Andrew Boulton takes a look at the short and at times very strange history of international footballers in adverts. Plus a few managers thrown to the wolves too…
Long before we were calling them influencers, famous figures were being recruited by brands to help them sell more stuff. In a pre-social media world, the most likely – and effective – of these celebrated characters were film stars, popular musicians and, of course, sportspeople.
Cricketer Ian Botham wanted us to eat more flavorless cereal, boxer Sonny Liston (alongside, confusingly, Andy Warhol) suggested we fly in style and NFL ‘begloved’ running back OJ Simpson had firm views on who we should rent our cars from. Even kiwi climber, Sir Edmund Hillary – his conquered mountain shamelessly manoeuvred into frame – assured us that an American Express card was the only real way to be taken seriously in the world.
Football, one of a handful of sports with genuinely fervent global appeal, was naturally a rich feeding ground for brands looking to nab a little of that vicarious adulation. And if you had the depth of pocket necessary to land yourself an international – particularly in a World Cup year – then that could very well be a game changer for your brand’s reputation. Theoretically, at least.
The relationship between ballers, brands and ads has become something of an obsession for some. Which is odd, as footballers, on the whole, are not natural presences in front of a camera.
George Clooney may be able to pull off the easy manner required to shift coffee pods by the million, but ask Jamie Redknapp to convincingly convey the dreaminess of a holiday, the comfiness of a shoe, or the tastiness of a cheeseburger and he may as well be asking you to invest all your money in an urban alpaca farm.
There are exceptions. France’s superstar playmaker, Eric Cantona, channelled his enormous self-regard into compelling performances in the service of everything from Kronenbourg 1664 lager to Paddy Power’s Brexit Bunker. He is also at the heart of some of the greatest footballing ads, from a brand who seemed to understand better than most how to do interesting things with the talent at their disposal: Nike.
Cantona, as you may remember, was the brooding centre of Nike famous ‘Good vs Evil’ match. Him leading a team of international footballers against a hell horde, before dispatching the winning goal (straight through the innards of a demon ‘keeper) with a withering ‘au revoir’. (The show was very nearly stolen though, through an unexpectedly comic turn by, of all people, Italy’s Paolo Maldini.)
Perhaps an even better ad from Nike was their ‘Parklife’ TV spot – where Cantona and England’s Ian Wright, David Seaman and Robbie Fowler were quietly embedded into a series of Sunday morning matches on Hackney Marshes. The ad’s success (many regard it as the greatest football ad ever made – although the Brazilian World Cup ’98 kickabout in an airport must also be a contender) was due to the rare understatement of the story.
The ‘Sky Sportification’ of football often meant players being portrayed as indestructible heroes, faced with the impossible and leaving it in their wake via an elaborately choreographed slow-motion trick.
Here, Cantona has his jersey tugged by a gasping plodder of a Sunday centre-half, while Robbie Fowler gifts the final goal to a hefty, middle-aged centre-forward still – wholly appropriately – sweating off what was no doubt scripted as a massive morning-after hangover.
The multi-star model has consistently been handled with much less wit (and impact) over time. Pepsi, in particular, thrusted and trusted an overloaded roster of international footballers with any number of tenuous scenarios, asking them to do cool stuff with a ball. England captain David Beckham, a ‘Cantona- ian’ presence until he has a line to deliver, is the front man for these largely forgettable ads – and took on the roles of gladiator and wild west sheriff, for no reason that particularly seems to matter. In fact, the only thing that does stick in the mind from those wholly lamentable set-ups is that Argentina’s Juan Veron’s menacing gunslinger would not look out of place in a Sergio Leone film.
The quality (or at least the memorability) of footballer adverts often depends on the gameness of the star. Another England man, Kevin Keegan, was no-more than a middling actor, but a truly nerve- less showman. He worked best in unlikely ‘buddy comedy’ pairings, playing the little guy alongside two of Britain’s greatest heavyweights – Henry Cooper, for Brut, and the Honey Monster for Sugar Puffs.
The willingness to say ‘yes’ to unusual propositions – whether through genuine good-nature or sloppy research from an agent – has gifted us some of the most surreal and entertaining entries to the footballer ad genre.
Retired Nottingham Forest & England star, Des Walker, is responsible for one of the truly great weird footballer ads. Impossible to do justice in print, but the heart of the idea is to have the man Forest fans sing that you’ll famously ‘never beat’ suspended from a coat hanger inside a man’s wardrobe to surprise him with an offer from Paddy Power. His opening line of ‘Desmond Sinclair Walker, 657 appearances, 1 goal’ alone is worthy of a Bafta. Perhaps all the Baftas. Perhaps even an Oscar. Even.
There’s also a long-forgotten ad where Arsenal stopper-in-chief and Strictly contestant 2022, Tony Adams, is held hostage by the Jaffa Cake ‘Tang Team’ who are, he tells us, attempting to take away his ‘orangey bits’. And there’s a Teddy Sheringham Holby City advert that is so difficult to find within even the darkest depths of the internet, that It’s easy to think it was only a dream. A fever dream, at that.
With the role of sporting captains holding such appeal for brands, we have a long (and varied) history of their advertising appearances. Gary Lineker famously subverted his ‘nice guy’ image in a series of campaigns for Walkers – robbing crisps from small children and mercilessly crushing the fingers of one Paul Gascoigne when Gazza tried to sneak a cheese and/or onion version covertly. Gazza, by the way, does not have as prolific a catalogue of prominent ads as you would expect – although he does star in one of the very best, a wonderfully surreal, and typically mischievous, spot for adidas Preda- tor called ‘The Magician’.
The Walkers character proved a winning performance from England’s no.9, going a long way to aid his reinvention from goal-poaching, shorts-soiling golden boy to a witty and weighty broadcaster.
Since Lineker captaincY, the line of England skippers lending out their status has been almost unbroken. Stuart Pearce has a decent record – not least for a Go Compare advert that sees him hoofing a trademark freekick into the belly of the unpop- ular opera singer Gio Compario.
However, ‘Psycho’s’ better-known effort is the still-startling Pizza Hut advert in which he and Chris Waddle mock Gareth Southgate for his Euro ’96 penalty miss, while the current England boss hides his head in shame within a paper bag. (We must wonder if that was ever brought up at all in the job interview with the FA.) And, to round it off, the adidas print advert portraying Manchester United holding midfield- er, Paul Ince, as an impenetrable wall of barbed wire was a clever – and striking – piece of creative work.
Without a toe barely dipped in modern times – due largely to footballer adverts having lost a great deal of the wild energy – more recent players have benefitted from the style-over-substance approach.
Raheem Sterling gets to slow motion a volley in a neon cage for Gillette. Harry Kane gloomily recites a brand manifesto, albeit while perched on a crossbar, for Harry’s Razors. Steven Gerrard is secretly filmed training on a pitch that most under-8s would refuse to play on for Lucozade. Leaving Liverpool skipper, Jordan Henderson, to play out an obscure story about hitching a ride to a generic red-carpet event – and who hasn’t done that, we hear you say – the skit only mildly redeemable for a fabulously dead-pan look to camera from Henderson that Martin Freeman would envy.
It goes without saying that we are bound to be inundated with the more fruits of footballer/brand alliances. Which, in a much-changed advertising world, will reach us in newer and more unexpected ways than TV spots and billboard. Some may be entertaining and persuasive, some will be bland.
Very few will be as wilfully odd as the ones people cherish most. But there is one consolation. If you’ve ever seen Michael Owen’s agonising promotional video for the Dubai tourist board where he plays the role of the one pilot you would happily knock unconscious mid-flight, then there is nothing you will see this year, or any other, that can possibly hurt you. Not even a group stage exit.
This article is from Pitch, a magazine that tells the stories of modern sport. You can find out more and get yourself a copy here.
