Manchester United shirt sponsor Chevrolet activates its partnership through a new Chinese campaign, called ‘Poem’, that sees players recite motivational poetry from some of the planet’s most famous writers.
This initiative, which promotes the release of a triumvirate of new Chevy models (Cruze, Camaro and Equinox) launched in June and is being aired on Tv and online across China.
The striking spot, shot at Old Trafford and locations from Manchester to Shanghai, intercuts images of the new vehicles with video of the players reading poetry in an attempt to capture the performance and high energy of the cars, the footballers and the fans.
A squad of United stars (including Paul Pogba, David De Gea and Chris Smalling) read poetry by an impressive line-up of international cultural icons (such as Victor Hugo, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and Shakespeare).
The voices of the players and the words of the poets combines into a powerful voice over.
Chevrolet – Poem (Director's Cut) from SEHSUCHT on Vimeo.
Developed in harness with creative agency McCann Shanghai and production company Made In China, the commercial was directed by Sehsucht’s Ole Peters.
The campaign was created for Shanghai General Motors by a team that included agency producer Maggie Xue, creatives Eric and Maurice and account manager Nana. The production team included executive producers Lanny Dong, Patrick Van Hautem and assistant Alice Wang, assisting director |Peters was Peter Shellnast, the second unit director was Gregor Budde-Petrush, the DOP was Peter Matjasko and the editor was Arthur Jagodda. UK production was handled by Chief Productions.
Comment:
Footballers and poets aren’t an obvious combination of skill sets, but this campaign combines them both effectively.
Our own favourite recent sports campaign revolving around poetry was the brilliant IRFU World Cup bid film which saw musician Bob Geldof read WB Yeates (see case study)
This is yet another demonstration of the ongoing trend of blending sport and culture in marketing.
As well as rolling out some first class global sponsorship work in recent months (such as the immersive ‘Destination United’ Uber campaign – see case study),
Manchester United themselves have been running some particularly inventive campaigns in Asia (like the ‘Wake Up The Red Devil’ interactive f;lm series – see case study).
Links:
Chevrolet / Shanghai General Motors
http://www.twitter.com/ChevroletFC
http://www.facebook.com/ChevroletFC
http://www.instagram.com/ChevroletFC
https://www.youtube.com/user/ChevroletFC
McCann Shanghai
https://mrm-mccann.com/locations/cn/en/shanghai.html
Manchester United
http://www.facebook.com/manchesterunited
http://www.instagram.com/manchesterun…
