Friday, September 23
Here's an idea for the new NHL ad campaign.
Darkened arena. An end view of a crisp, white, fresh sheet of ice bathed in bright light. It's empty, you know for the symbolism. Good music (Ninja, you pick it) comes up. We cut to a side, TV style view of the same ice, but now it has the lines on it... The new ones, you know, for more symbolism. The music is coming up getting your attention a little. We cut to a close view of a player on the ice practicing his offensive moves. It's quick shots showing his feet, his stick blade, and the puck doing a jig. It's Jarome Iginla. He's awesome. He's young. People like him. You can hear his blades grinding on the ice and that rattle of the stick and puck, even over our awesome music. You cut back to the fresh ice as the music slows just a little, only so briefly. Then it comes back as we switch angles and find Mario, wearing that 66, gliding gently just inside his own blue-line near the boards. He fires off a pass. Down at ice level, our camera switches just as a young, good-looking teammate of Mario's collects his pass at the other blue line and turns toward goal, and our camera. He looks up, just as he would if he was coming in for that one-on-one following the now-legal two line pass. For this skater we could use a no-name actor or maybe a chick in lingerie. Or we could use Sidney Crosby. Yeah, let's go with Crosby. That'll be like more symbolism as we pass from one generation to the next. Plus, the lingerie thing probably wouldn't go over too well with our female fans. We come back to the empty arena, but again only for a moment. When we switch again we find a semi-circle of players. Maybe they're Islanders or Flyers, but probably someone with a good, young goalie. They're out near the blue line and we're looking from high overhead. We cut down low and one (young star) player starts off at the far right with a shot on goal. He winds up and fires, full slapshot. We go close in, head on with the goalie. He gloves the shot with flare and edges left to face the next one. He's peppered with shots. Quick cuts. He stops them all. The last one rings off the crossbar, twirling in the air above our goalie. As the camera follows the puck up in slow motion, we go back to our empty arena and cut, with the music, to a new shot. It's a full arena, fans cheering as actions speeds on at ice level. We cut to an awesome offensive move by Iginla as he dances around a hopeless defenseman, a crisp pass play from Mario that makes people think he's not human, and just one helluva highlight reel pad-stacker by the goalie. Our music finishes off and we cut back to our empty arena and bring up some stupid line like, "It starts here..."... Followed by one more awe-inspiring clip of something good on hockey skates and another dark screen and "It starts October 2005."
As the year progresses, we can continue with this theme. Later, we can use the "It ends here" line as the play-offs come in. That ad would be fun to make.
Yes, this might be a little cliche, but give me a break... I came up with the ad while getting coffee this morning and I'm not getting paid for it.
____
Okay. We could do that... Or we could do this.
I encourage you to watch the ad before reading further, because I don't want to sway your opinion by saying...
It fucking sucks. It's terrible. Horrible. Awful. Brutal. Idiotic. Lame. Stupid. Dreadful. Ghastly. Lurid. Nightmarish. Foul. Unspeakable. Appalling.
Who are the marketing geniuses that came up with this one? Are they serious or were they getting revenge on Gary Bettman? Was it "Bring Your Mental Retard To Work Day" at the ad company?
"We wanted to get deep inside the soul of the game to reach the rabid fan who is starved for hockey and the casual fan who might have overlooked it," said Thomas C. Cotton, president of Conductor (the NHL's marketing company).
This is a classic example of something stupid people say to sound smart. Thomas C. Cotton is an idiot. Thomas C. Cotton has never seen a hockey game in his life. Thomas C. Cotton sucked Gary Bettman's asshole. Thomas C. Cotton was paid well for his efforts.
I defy anyone to explain to me how this ad helps hockey in any way. Not only does the ad just plain suck, but it doesn't have a single hockey player or a single hockey play. But wait, they'll tell me it has some hot chick!!! Everyone loves hot chicks. Well, almost everyone.
If you made an ad for hockey, would the player be wearing an "NHL" jersey? Does anyone you know cheer for that team? And they expect people to get excited by this? This is touching "the soul of the game?" This isn't even an actual part of the game, for fucks sake.
In the article linked to above Gary Bettman said, "When the season begins on Oct. 5, we will celebrate the return of hockey, and honour the values, tradition and emotion of the game we all love."
Apparently they're taking the unique approach of trying to do this without actually focusing on honour, values, tradition, emotion, or hockey.
I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe they're just rusty. They have been out of work for a while. Maybe we should give them time before busting out the mental retard jokes.
Of course, the fact remains that they've never been any good at this. And when their new ad campaign makes long for the days of Denis Leary and Shania Twain explaining the rules of hockey, you know it's not getting better any time soon.
Darkened arena. An end view of a crisp, white, fresh sheet of ice bathed in bright light. It's empty, you know for the symbolism. Good music (Ninja, you pick it) comes up. We cut to a side, TV style view of the same ice, but now it has the lines on it... The new ones, you know, for more symbolism. The music is coming up getting your attention a little. We cut to a close view of a player on the ice practicing his offensive moves. It's quick shots showing his feet, his stick blade, and the puck doing a jig. It's Jarome Iginla. He's awesome. He's young. People like him. You can hear his blades grinding on the ice and that rattle of the stick and puck, even over our awesome music. You cut back to the fresh ice as the music slows just a little, only so briefly. Then it comes back as we switch angles and find Mario, wearing that 66, gliding gently just inside his own blue-line near the boards. He fires off a pass. Down at ice level, our camera switches just as a young, good-looking teammate of Mario's collects his pass at the other blue line and turns toward goal, and our camera. He looks up, just as he would if he was coming in for that one-on-one following the now-legal two line pass. For this skater we could use a no-name actor or maybe a chick in lingerie. Or we could use Sidney Crosby. Yeah, let's go with Crosby. That'll be like more symbolism as we pass from one generation to the next. Plus, the lingerie thing probably wouldn't go over too well with our female fans. We come back to the empty arena, but again only for a moment. When we switch again we find a semi-circle of players. Maybe they're Islanders or Flyers, but probably someone with a good, young goalie. They're out near the blue line and we're looking from high overhead. We cut down low and one (young star) player starts off at the far right with a shot on goal. He winds up and fires, full slapshot. We go close in, head on with the goalie. He gloves the shot with flare and edges left to face the next one. He's peppered with shots. Quick cuts. He stops them all. The last one rings off the crossbar, twirling in the air above our goalie. As the camera follows the puck up in slow motion, we go back to our empty arena and cut, with the music, to a new shot. It's a full arena, fans cheering as actions speeds on at ice level. We cut to an awesome offensive move by Iginla as he dances around a hopeless defenseman, a crisp pass play from Mario that makes people think he's not human, and just one helluva highlight reel pad-stacker by the goalie. Our music finishes off and we cut back to our empty arena and bring up some stupid line like, "It starts here..."... Followed by one more awe-inspiring clip of something good on hockey skates and another dark screen and "It starts October 2005."
As the year progresses, we can continue with this theme. Later, we can use the "It ends here" line as the play-offs come in. That ad would be fun to make.
Yes, this might be a little cliche, but give me a break... I came up with the ad while getting coffee this morning and I'm not getting paid for it.
____
Okay. We could do that... Or we could do this.
I encourage you to watch the ad before reading further, because I don't want to sway your opinion by saying...
It fucking sucks. It's terrible. Horrible. Awful. Brutal. Idiotic. Lame. Stupid. Dreadful. Ghastly. Lurid. Nightmarish. Foul. Unspeakable. Appalling.
Who are the marketing geniuses that came up with this one? Are they serious or were they getting revenge on Gary Bettman? Was it "Bring Your Mental Retard To Work Day" at the ad company?
"We wanted to get deep inside the soul of the game to reach the rabid fan who is starved for hockey and the casual fan who might have overlooked it," said Thomas C. Cotton, president of Conductor (the NHL's marketing company).
This is a classic example of something stupid people say to sound smart. Thomas C. Cotton is an idiot. Thomas C. Cotton has never seen a hockey game in his life. Thomas C. Cotton sucked Gary Bettman's asshole. Thomas C. Cotton was paid well for his efforts.
I defy anyone to explain to me how this ad helps hockey in any way. Not only does the ad just plain suck, but it doesn't have a single hockey player or a single hockey play. But wait, they'll tell me it has some hot chick!!! Everyone loves hot chicks. Well, almost everyone.
If you made an ad for hockey, would the player be wearing an "NHL" jersey? Does anyone you know cheer for that team? And they expect people to get excited by this? This is touching "the soul of the game?" This isn't even an actual part of the game, for fucks sake.
In the article linked to above Gary Bettman said, "When the season begins on Oct. 5, we will celebrate the return of hockey, and honour the values, tradition and emotion of the game we all love."
Apparently they're taking the unique approach of trying to do this without actually focusing on honour, values, tradition, emotion, or hockey.
I'd give them the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe they're just rusty. They have been out of work for a while. Maybe we should give them time before busting out the mental retard jokes.
Of course, the fact remains that they've never been any good at this. And when their new ad campaign makes long for the days of Denis Leary and Shania Twain explaining the rules of hockey, you know it's not getting better any time soon.
View My Stats