Paddy Power helps Jose Mourinho ‘park the bus’ on return to Chelsea
Former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho returns to Stamford Bridge today with his new club Manchester United – and Paddy Power is marking the occasion with another of its cheeky marketing stunts.
Mourinho’s United team ground at a 0-0 draw with Liverpool on Monday night with the kind of defensive performance that has been characterised as ‘parking the bus’.
And after a week of debate about the merits of such tactics by football pundits, and perhaps in anticipation of a similar style in today’s clash, the bookmaker has sought to hijack the conversation with its own ‘buses only’ parking space for Mourinho outside Stamford Bridge.
The prank is the work of Paddy Power’s advertising agency Lucky Generals, and is just the latest in a long line of stunts it has pulled over the years.
A little prank we pulled for Paddy Power, outside Stamford Bridge today... https://t.co/9iHYdKmc8S
— Andy Nairn (@andynairn) October 23, 2016
The brand's previous efforts have included an 'emergency Alex Ferguson' during David Moyes' troubled tenure at Old Trafford, a general election wagon telling MPs they'd be getting "sacked in the morning" and hiring a Mexican mariachi band, dubbed Juan Direction, to welcome Donald Trump to the UK.