New Carling Black Label Campaign Shines Spotlight On Football’s Behind The Scenes Champions

Naturally, the brands which associate themselves with athletic achievement are gearing up for soccer-orientated executions… and there must be plenty of head-scratching out there: How do we do something different, dude?

The champions behind the champions

Carling Black Label has taken a different angle, deciding to focus on the people who, as they say, are “often overlooked in conversations around success: the champions behind the champions.”

And it’s a factual, if one might say obvious, observation, but nonetheless still telling.

So, we see vignettes of the people behind the scenes – those who prepare the stadiums, who organise the kit, who mow the pitches to perfect preparedness – who are the invisible (at least on match day) team behind the 11 actually on the field.

The ad makes the point that these people need to be as skilled and as dedicated as those who have made their name by strapping on boots.

It’s a timely reminder to fans – even the ones back home who won’t be able to make the long trek to North America to see our own Bafana Bafana in action – that, without these people, there would be no national team presence in the World Cup Finals.

And, of course, Carling being Carling, there is more than a nod to the advertising history of the brand. Remember those ads, where the hard-working okes (and they were invariably men) fought fires, rescued people at sea and generally did manly things before retiring to the local pub to slake their thirsts with an ice-cold Carling Black Label?

So, too, do the behind-the-scenes army need to chill after a hard day’s work making the football stars look even better. These are “the champions behind the champions”, the narrative goes, “and they deserve their reward of being one.”

It’s simple, well crafted and emphasises, too, that Carling Black Label is the “Official beer” of the upcoming tournament. And, while taking a different tack, it also maintains the brand’s solid marketing spine.

So, Orchids to Carling Black Label, Romance Films and Nthato Mokgata.

A risky bet for Playa Bets

The Onion stays in the sporting arena, with a lack-lustre ad for Playa Bets, featuring Springbok star Faf De Klerk – he who has made a cottage industry out of that Speedo in the colours of the national flag.

This time it shows up as he is supposedly being interviewed by a “shrink” and the conversation would be stilted if only it was vaguely real. Now I know advertising is often not about reality, but I get the feeling someone in creative said: “Chuck in Faf! That’ll do!”

Well, it won’t – and even he looks bored as the spot, predictably, has the female shrink ogling him and doodling about his body rather than making notes.

The “clever” one-liners are tired and sleazy. “Sometimes, size does count”, says Faf, looking like he would rather have sticks stuck in his eyes. And that’s followed by something about “not many can handle a package like that…” Whatever that means.

How on earth that tempts people into throwing away their money on an online gambling platform is beyond me. I’ll bet (ha ha) that Faf himself is not one of those suckers.

Still, keep on chuckling all the way to the bank, boet.

As for Playa Bets, all you’ve proved is that celebrity endorsement is nothing if you don’t utilise it in a creative way – and this dreck is anything but creative.

You get an Onion and if you continue in this vein, you’ll be the odds-on favourite to pick up even more of them.