Paddy Power trolls wounded window shoppers Manchester United with missed transfers
You may not be anywhere near the office water cooler right now, but we still want to spotlight the most talked about creative from the brands that should be on your radar. Today, Paddy Power is up to no good once more.
Paddy Power trolls wounded window-shopping Manchester United with missed signing shop
After a historic defeat and a transfer window that left many fans disappointed, Manchester United is again the butt of the joke. Bookmaker Paddy Power has assembled a who’s who shopfront of players the club was supposedly out to sign.
The Manchester store is ”dedicated to transfer deadline day’s greatest window shopper – Manchester United chief executive Ed Woodward”.
This timely activation had a quick turn around – after all United, may have actually signed a superstar by the close of the window, rendering the bold high-street activity void. Lee Price, head of PR and mischief at Paddy Power credited VCCP for turning the Friday pitch around over the space of a weekend.
It features ”nearly men transfers” Jadon Sancho, Jack Grealish, Erling Haaland and Paulo Dybala, Thiago Alcantara and Gareth Bale.
Alcantara, who opted to move to Premier League champions Liverpool instead of United, is described on the window as an ‘Award-winning Spanish model. Sold to more attractive buyer. Third purchase opportunity unlikely‘.
For Gareth Bale, it reads: ‘Approached. Rejected. Missed out. In that order’, mimicking his famous Wales, golf, Madrid flag.
For additional salt in the wound, there is a sister store called ‘Ed’s Panic Buys’ stocked with ‘last-minute purchases‘.
A spokesman for Paddy Power said: “When it comes to transfers, Ed Woodward is the ultimate window shopper. We wanted to celebrate his penchant for looking at high-end purchases, before instead throwing money at an ageing attacker that could have been signed much earlier. No doubt the store will be ‘busy’ again come January.”
The transfer deadline deal, a staple of the football calendar, prompted Paddy Power to get back out into the real world with a physical activation.
After starting the conversation, the bookmaker is aiming to nail the landing with bespoke odds on United's chances of turning things around.