Land Rover’s Laddish South African Spots Return To Old School (Sexist) Rugby Spirit

Land Rover’s local South Africa spots activating its Rugby World Cup sponsorship revolve around rules and referees and feature a commentator offering a comic (sexist) play-by-play breakdown of everyday situations through a rugby lense.

The first film sees a rugby ref adjudicating on an instance of foul play in the form of obstruction.

While the second ad also address the ‘coming in from the side’ rule of rugby.

Both spots end with the tagline: ‘Land Rover, dedicated to the spirit of rugby’.

These ads support the core element of Land Rover’s #WeDealInReal RWC 2015 work (see case study) that saw the global, multi-market TV spot air in South Africa,

alongside a market specific local thread on the same theme revolving around the Soweto Rugby Club.

These ran alongside elements of Land Rover’s global mascots activation strand,

as well as some South Africa specific online spots fronted by former Springbok John Smit – including a Land Rover owners’ ticket competition

and big game interview insight spots.

Comment

We admire the commitment of the global, grassroots #WeDealInReal work, but we can’t help but wonder whether these kind of laddish (sexist) tactics in these local spots are really still part of the spirit of rugby.

After all, both the property owner and many of the tournament’s and teams’ major sponsors have worked hard on running activations that take a modern approach to the game and aim to bring rugby to the mass market mainstream.

Most of the 2015 tournament market has moved on from this kind of stereotypical, lads-magazine style spots which remind us a little of old school work from previous tournaments (such as the Lynx ambush spots from the last RWC in New Zealand in 2011).

(See case study.)

However, this year’s tournament has also seen one or two old-school laddish campaigns.

Such as the ambush activity by Australia’s ‘Tradie Workwear’ brand that drew complaints over its RWC related underwear ad fronted by Wallabies star Nick ‘Honey Badger’ Cummins that made colloquial references to male genitalia.

This TV spot, created by Sojo, describes undergarments as ‘snazzy looking fart filters that’ll keep your meat and two veg very warm’, ‘the duck’s nuts’, and ‘the ultimate toolbox’.

Although Australia’s Advertising Standards Board dismissed the complaints citing that most of the country was familiar with the slang terms.

Links

Land Rover South Africa YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/LandRoverSouthAfrica

Land Rover South Africa Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/LandRoverSou…
Land Rover South Africa Twitter:

https://twitter.com/LandRoverZA
Land Rover South Africa Instagram:

https://instagram.com/landroversa/

Rugby World Cup Website:

http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/

Rugby World Cup Twitter:

https://twitter.com/rugbyworldcup

Rugby World Cup Facebook: