Orange, a French telecoms brand is a partner to French football for more than 24 years and of the French Football Federation since 2018.
They’ve produced an advert lately with some fantastic highlights of football, from Les Bleus – the French soccer team. It’s amazing, the excitement, the skill, the ball play, it’s highly exciting.
And the advert includes the caption….
This is the football we love
Only Les Blues can give us this emotion
And then….
There’s a big reveal.
Savour the emotion of football, even if you’re not the biggest fan. Stay long enough to check out the big reveal….
Now, I’m not sure how I feel about the deep fake visual effects, but I’m putting that aside for the moment.
What I love about it is that it is about changing people’s perceptions.
You see, many football “fans” have a certain idea of what they think women’s football is like. For a majority of fans, they see men’s soccer as faster and better than womens.
But with clever use of visual effects, the compilation of highly entertaining football which is actually highlights from the women’s games, not the men’s games as you would have thought when you started watching it. The editors overlayed (probably not the right word) and replaced the females with males….highlighting the skill.
Do you know what I also love about it?
The brainstorming that went on in the advertising agency office as well as Orange. So many adverts I hear or see, I question how some ads get through approvals.
This advert is brilliant for the idea itself – the idea of challenging a segment of society and their thinking. For wanting to challenge a known assumption, being brave to put it out there.
Bravo to the creative team Marcel Agency for coming up with it and the management team in Orange for approving it.
The Power of Advertising
There’s no question that we all carry around our own biases. I get that. What I also get is that the power of an advert can create real conversations, which hopefully will lead to change.
This video has gone viral and it’s great to see…because while we need more than one person to change their perception, however if only one person changes and then he changes someone else….then that ripple effect occurs.
It was the same with the Always ad of #likeagirl a few years. Being told you run like a girl is meant as an insult and Always wanted to change that too.
Here’s that ad that they ran:
And perhaps I’m biased for highlighting these ads as I’m a marketer but I’m also a mother of sporty young lady.
But the reality is this – I love seeing people make a difference in the world through their business…and as you’re reading this, let me say that you probably make more difference in the world than you know.
This French Soccer ad and the Always ad celebrates you.
How so, Denise?
Well, we all don’t have the budget or the resources to spend months researching the best technical skills and matching them using visual effects editing. We don’t have the budget for professionally developed adverts like the Always one.
But many of us stand up for what we believe, so we can make a difference.
No matter the size of your marketing, it’s your message that you need to continue to push out.
Keep doing you.
This is advertising at its best – it’s entertaining and it’s making an impact.
Well done Orange, standing on the shoulders of giants who came before you…trying to change the perception of women in sport.
