The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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By Andrew Boulton

June 12, 2014 | 5 min read

If, aged 10, someone introduced me to Tom Cruise, in all his gurning, over-bearing, faintly cultish horror I never would have watched Top Gun. Equally, if someone showed me the latest Pepsi advert for the World Cup I would sooner have goats gnaw off my ankles than have anything to do with football. That is how appalling it is.

But this is no surprise. Pepsi is the undisputed master of vulgar, dead-eyed and entirely patronising football adverts. Grinning footballers, straining to conceal their embarrassment, act out a joyless series of circus tricks in a ‘quirky’ location to the soundtrack of some grating corporate commissioned musical atrocity. Fill a pillowcase with cans of Pepsi and beat me til my bones are dust.

The aim for the ad, I can only assume, was to create a carnival atmosphere. And it succeeds to an extent, if the carnival in question is a parade of gibbons furiously tearing limbs from terrified spectators. That kind of carnival.

An instantly unlikeable Brazilian hipster starts the dreary procession, meandering around the streets with drumsticks in his pockets, looking for the spark of youthful adventure, but desperately in need of a part time job and a sensible haircut.

Soon the young scoundrel comes across Lionel Messi, whose acting credentials can be summarised neatly by his failure to even hold a newspaper convincingly. He may be the most gifted footballer the world has ever known but on this performance he’d be the weak link in an episode of Hollyoaks.

Soon this Favela Nick Grimshaw has instigated an entirely underwhelming kick about between some of the world’s greatest players (and Jack Wilshere). Even Brazilian defender David Luiz, usually as unpredictable as a badger on acid, is barely recognisable as a human being with the capacity for free expression. They are all droids, fuelled by lots of money and the early twinges of cola-accelerated type two diabetes.

Even smashing your wristwatch and plunging the shrapnel into your optic nerve won’t stop it, as a painfully insipid version of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ (strangely, by the usually fairly reliable Janelle Monae) thrashes against your ear drums like a trapped weasel.

There’s not a single redeeming feature to the whole episode, expect perhaps the look of utter disdain a girl on the bus gives the hipster when he stands leering at her over his fizzy drink. Her expression says what we all feel, and we can only lament her failure to seize control of the bus and crash into all involved.

Pepsi, kindly souls that they are, also offer you the chance to use Blippar to unlock behind the scenes footage and an augmented gallery game. If the app gave me the chance to travel back in time to the two minutes before I began watching this advert I’d Blip so hard my thumb bone would snap like a cheap pencil.

Pepsi is the worst at this. It has lots of money, top footballers and access to any location in the world and it seems it is terrified of abandoning this formula for anything that actually reflects what people really feel about the World Cup. I can only assume that when Pepsi sets fire to Michael Jackson’s hair its punishment was to hand over their lifetime supply of subtlety and wit.

Pepsi is doing a disservice to the World Cup and how fans will engage with it and this broad swipe at the popular audience is the kind lazy marketing that only such a wealthy brand could be guilty of. I’m sure many people around the world were excited and inspired by this advert. Dangle a piece of shiny paper in front of their eyes and I’d imagine you’d get a similar response. But, for the enjoyment of the World Cup, football, life and probably even re-watching Top Gun, I’d just as soon pretend it never happened.

Andrew's final World Cup ad review will run tomorrow. Until then, read his reviews of the World Cup efforts from Mars, Nike, Banco de Chile and The Sun and follow him on Twitter @Boultini