Danish Broadcaster TV 2 promotes its Winter Olympics coverage ahead of the start of Beijing 2022 with an on-air, comic ‘Underdogs’ campaign that parodies how other countries prepare their youngsters for the event in comparison to Denmark.
Based around the idea that ‘athletes aren’t born, but are made’, the IOC’s official Danish broadcaster’s tongue-in-cheek ‘Danish Underdogs’ campaign is led by a TV promo and supported by OOH ads which show vignettes and carry messaging about of how other winter sports nations prepare their kids for the Games years in advance.
The creative positions Danish winter sports stars as underdogs against the world: with other kids across the globe – from Canada and the Czech Republic, to Finland, Italy, Norway and Japan (with subtitles for the various languages featured) – being tested and trained in various snow and ice sports from a very young age.
Supporting the hero commercial is a set of outdoor posters running across Denmark comparing the nation’s chances of success against other heavyweight Winter Games countries with copy lines such as:
“In Austria they have skiing in pre-school. We have dodgeball.”
“The USA has more ice hockey referees than we have players.”
“In Denmark, we have a saying that goes something like, ‘The Norwegians are born with skis on’ (meaning they are really into skiing and really good at it) and that was the line that sparked the idea,” explained in-house copywriter Thomas Fabricius. “At first, we talked about showing real babies in other countries being born with tiny skis on … however, that seemed a little too bizarre so here’s where we ended up.”
“The thing about us Danes being underdogs at the Winter Olympics – and basically anything that has to do with snow or ice – that’s just a fact,” added Art Director Kristian Vestergaard. “We haven’t really had any snow for decades and our country is flat as pancake. On top of that we’ve always been more into things like soccer and handball—so winter sports is pretty uphill in our part of the world.”.
The campaign was created and developed in-house by the creative team at TV 2 Creative with production by Kind Film and those leading the project included Creative Director Chaga Signe Bruun, Art Director Kristian Vestergaard, Copywriter Thomas Fabricius, Brand Manager Jesper Andersson, Project Manager Camilla Bagger, Producer Charlotte Refslund and Director Anders Bundgaard.
The channel will air coverage over of the Beijing Games from 4 February
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