The former Manchester United and England defender Paul Scholes teams up with a host of other big name, recently retired footballers to front a clichéd ‘make The Time Right’ campaign for QNB leveraging spiking soccer interest around the FIFA World Cup.
Scholes makes a cameo in a commercial that also features former footballers Hernan Crespo, David Trezeguet and Gianluca Zambrotta.
The players all throw some Cossack-inspired moves
The advert opens with Crespo, Trezeguet and Zambrotta dressed in traditional Russian soldier, Cossack style uniforms and fooling around during a kick-about.
They start dancing in various free-style, vaguely Cossack inspired moves.
The passing Scholes seems distantly unimpressed with their skills and so drops his bag and joins in the game.
Launched on 10 June as the tournament kicked-off, the spot ran across the Qatar-based financial brand’s digital and social channels in both English and Arabic versions,
and was also amplified by the players themselves – as per Crespo’s own Instragram page.
The spot was essentially a World Cup marketing marker ahead of the 2022 tournament which will be played in QNB’s home maarket Qatar and the brand also activated socially throughout the tournament with a series of game-relevant content.
The final is here!Can you predict the winner tonight? pic.twitter.com/t7FwCl5EDm
— QNB Group (@QNBGroup) July 15, 2018
Today’s match separates us from the final! Who will win? pic.twitter.com/MezcYhq1DF
— QNB Group (@QNBGroup) July 14, 2018
Comment:
Is this the most host nation stereo-typed spot from the 2018 World Cup, or does betting brand, or does Ladbrokes’ clichéd commercial edge it (see case study)?
What possessed Paul Scholes or any of the others to get involved in this cheesy, cliché-filled cringe worthy campaign – which might possibly offensive to many Russians – might just remain a mystery.
Surely it wasn’t the money?
But what do we know?
After all, most of us never thought Scholes would become a pundit, let alone an ad pitchman.
Links:
QNB
https://www.facebook.com/QNBGroup
https://www.youtube.com/user/QNBGROUP
https://www.instagram.com/QNBGroup/
