Proving once and for all that mobile advertising executives have their heads wedged firmly up their own arses, Israeli mobile phone company Cellcom launched an ad last week that has been universally derided.
To sell more mobile phones, the ad depicts a soccer ball sailing over the Israel/Palestine wall, hitting a jeep full of Israeli soldiers. The soldiers decide to have an impromptu game of soccer, calling their friends and laughing like they’re in a tampon ad. The voiceover says “‘After all, what are we all after? Just a little fun.’
I won’t bother even commenting on this ad as countless others have done it better than I could.
Where it does get interesting is when Ayyad Mediqa filmed themselves re-enacting the ad, kicking a soccer ball over to Israel from the Palestinian side. Rather than beefy grinning Israelis kicking the ball back as in the ad, they get bombarded with tear gas grenades.
What I find so powerful is the immediacy of Youtube and the internet to bring us this response, which is so much more effective than just complaining about the ad to the advertising standards board. In this short video, they have shown perfectly why the original ad was so cynical and naive in the first place.
I wonder if the ad was inspired by John Safran when he kicked his football into Israel in “Race Around the World” and the soldiers wouldn’t give him his ball back? (I cannot believe there is no footage of that on the entire internet - if you find it, let me know).
(Hat-tip to Dirk the Cow for the Ayyad Mediqa response.)
This post is tagged under: dishonesty in advertising
Thanks Cheryl, you’ve shed a bit more light on it for me - I for one was puzzled at what the ad voiceover, on top of the folksy music, was meant to be!
And indeed, an incredible naive piece of advertising. Even in Israel it seems to be less than well received with one of the biggest facebook groups being a Hebrew language one