Ad of the Day: Paddy Power helps forgotten Jack Wilshere find a football club
Out of work footballer Jack Wilshere has teamed up with Irish bookmaker Paddy Power in a tongue-in-cheek video to let clubs know he is ‘fit, ready and available for offers’ with one stipulation: not from old Tottenham Hotspur.
In a bid to attract the attention of a new club the spoof ad shows the midfielder in a meeting with two Paddy Power marketing execs who kick off the ‘Jack Wilshere Retirement Plan’ presentation, but with only six months passed since leaving his last club Bournemouth, the former Arsenal hero reminds the team that he hasn’t hung up his boots just yet.
Quickly bypassing NFT (non-fungible token) and reality TV suggestions, the PR duo begins presenting hot new digital trends to get Wiltshire back in the game.
Reluctantly, the England international has a go at some of the social media tactics that Paddy Power advise such as channeling his inner Bruno Fernandes by writing the perfect apology message, which hilariously reads "Sorry I forgot to take the bins out this week. Wasn't good enough, and not what the house deserves. We go again next week”, and filming keepie-uppies while eating a sandwich to symbolize his hunger to return to the beautiful game.
“Jack Wilshere hasn’t actually retired from football yet – who knew?! He’s still a top professional though, so we wanted to do our bit to help him get back in the game,” said a Paddy Power spokesman.
“But, being pretty good at football just won’t cut it anymore – you have to excel in other areas, such as having millions of Instagram followers, or filming yourself eating breakfast for your TikTok channel.
If strapping a GoPro to his head ‘every time he takes a pre-game dump’ keeps 38-year-old Ben Foster relevant, the video states, it’ll work for Wilshere too, right?
The anonymous spokesperson concluded: “Thankfully, Jack understood the need to improve his digital profile and really threw himself into the process. In fact, I’d go as far to say that his acting display was an even better performance than that night against Barcelona.”
The campaign was created in-house.
