Nike Football – Winner Stays

For its FIFA World Cup advert, Nike is heavily relying on the power of celebrity endorsement. The list of appearing football stars is long and reads like the who’s who of our times, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Wayne Rooney, Zlatan Ibrahimović, Gerard Piqué, Gonzalo Higuaín, Mario Götze, Eden Hazard, and Andrés Iniesta.

Davide Grasso, Nike’s Chief Marketing Officer, commented: “We connect to players’ passion for the game, whether it is the world’s best in Brasil or players in the park or street. ‘Winner Stays’ taps into an experience that every young player around the world will recognize – competition with friends and the idea of playing with your heroes or pretending to be them.”

Due to its very engaging nature the spot went viral very quickly and reached just over 66.5 million views on Youtube by 25th May.

Samsung Mobile – GALAXY 11

Vicious aliens are attacking the earth and challenged mankind to a game of football. The human race puts its hopes on Franz Beckenbauer to build a team strong enough to defeat the aliens.

Click on the following video to see who was chosen for the Galaxy 11:

And here’s the Galaxy 11’s first training session:

Accompanied with a gaming app and a dedicated website explaining the story, the team and the ‘Team Tech’, Samsung has created a creative cross-platform marketing strategy around the FIFA World Cup. It achieved to position its new product range (Galaxy S5, Note Pro, Gear 2, Note3, Note 10.1, S4) in a very involving, action-loaded way.

However, despite the creative idea behind Galaxy 11, one cannot deny the similarities to Nike’s advert ‘The Mission’ from the year 1999. Here, a team of stars (among them Edgar Davids, Bierhoff, Guardiola, Van Gaal) is send to steal Nike’s new football from an army of dangerous robots.

Powerade – Nico Calabria’s Story of Defying Expectations

A very different approach to Nike’s and Samsung’s celebrity-loaded advertising is presented by Powerade which tells the story of Nico Calabria, a young american who was born with just one leg.

With this video the official beverage partner of the FIFA World Cup has decided to tell an emotional and inspiring story to communicate its ‘Power Through’ brand message. Unlike most energy drink advertisements which tell us to become the best, this spot demonstrates how the human spirit can defeat physical disabilities as long as it’s determined to play a sport.

Picture: Powerade
References: Soccer Cleats 101, The Economic Times