Here We Go Again
Usually, at this time of year, we’d have watched the World Cup on our screens in pubs and at home and probably be nursing a hangover from all the intense excitement. Who knows, football might well have come home.
We’d have been enticed into a beer or two by advertisers tempting us with global offerings of how the beer will have enhanced our collective enjoyment.
It’s a simple premise that beer and football go hand in keepers’ glove with footie. Okay, the scenes we have seen in previous World Cups of beer swilling yobs running riot, have been mitigated against by a simple title that says ‘drink responsibly’. Unfortunately, the knuckle dragging Neanderthals can’t read.
With Qatar’s laws on alcohol consumption, this could be a very different looking tournament from what viewers are used to, mostly in terms of the ads we’re served.
Different Tournament From Years Past
Well, this year, we can be assured no drunken rioting will occur on the streets of Qatar, as it is as dry as the deserts of the Arab world.
Why choose a tiny nation where it is too hot to play football in mid-summer, with stadiums built in appalling conditions by migrant workers and being gay is illegal F*** only knows. And by that I mean FIFA.
The uneasy alliance between beer and football has become even more fragile due to FIFA’s choice, which I wouldn’t dare suggest has anything to do with corruption and backhanders.
So how will beer brands overcome the ugly truth in celebration of the beautiful game?
They body swerve the ethical issues, nutmeg the LGBT values, shimmy around the abstinence dilemma and unleash a volley towards the goal of landing huge returns pre-Christmas.
Back of the net profits.
So strategically, how does an agency create something compelling for drinkers who will be watching at home and in the pubs beginning in November? They go abstract.
Budweiser Are Already Going Off Piste
Budweiser, The Official Beer of Qatar 2022, has already broken with its offering and it is entirely baffling.
Lionel Messi, has found himself in a messy piece of communications about being in the tunnel before a game. The strains of Tear For Beers, sorry, I mean Fears ‘Everybody Wants to Rule The World’ echo through the dimly lit interior.
These get mashed up with a rap that battles with a VO speaking about the moments before greatness. A collection of young people from all walks of life, some looking decidedly LGBTQ+ are in the tunnel with Lionel.
Where is this going? Oh it’s telling us all to be bold and reach for greatness. I suppose they are saying their beer is great and you can be great too. Messi is getting tense as he is about to enter the arena and claim the title of the World’s greatest footballer and to hell with Ronaldo.
How is he going to overcome that trepidation, that angst, that all-encompassing fear to rule the world?
He twists the top off a bottle of Bud, presumably to have a swift nerve-steadier before kick off.
The King of Football, necking back the King of Beers.
Now I’ve made enough beer commercials in my time to understand the strict rules that surround alcohol advertising and I’m staggered that this got through the regulators and made it onto our screens.
Or maybe it is all just implied he’s having a crafty swig and not overt.
I remember Budweiser’s last World Cup commercial of friendly looking drones flying out of the brewery to deliver their payload to all the global outlets, into people’s homes and even into the stadia. I got it. No inferences, no weird philosophy, just beer going into the places where the game can be enjoyed.
I remember Budweiser’s last World Cup commercial of friendly looking drones flying out of the brewery to deliver their payload to all the global outlets, into people’s homes and even into the stadia. I got it. No inferences, no weird philosophy, just beer going into the places where the game can be enjoyed.
Are We Supposed To Get This?
This one, I don’t get and maybe I’m not supposed to. It distracts me from the real issues at play here.
Maybe other brewers will go more traditional and less haughty. Heineken have recently chosen to concentrate on global warming issues and using solar powered posters to chill their beer.
Eric Cantona has already declared his lack of interest in the 2022 World Cup due to the issues stated above so I wonder if Kronenbourg will keep him as their spokesman in the light of his stance.
The fact is, fans are having their club football disrupted for the World Cup In the build up to Christmas, with everyone feeling the pinch of rocketing fuel prices and cost of living crisis.
Maybe I’m just being too cynical and principled.
Perhaps I just need to sit in my freezing UK home, due to exorbitant gas prices, watch in a darkened room, due to saving electricity and wear a beer jacket whilst watching a bunch of overpaid prima donnas playing in the sun.
Let me just reach for the remote control and a bevvy.
