Pepsi Soccer in the Surf

Pepsi connected surf and soccer in a TV ad released in February 2005, a month after it had been pulled because of the Indian ocean tsunami. The Pepsi Surf Soccer ad features football players David Beckham, Thierry Henry, Roberto Carlos, Raul Gonzales, Ronaldinho, Fernando Torres and Rafael Van Der Vaart taking the game to the waves.

The commercial has no audible dialogue – but does finish with the Portugese words, “Arrisque mais, viva mais” which translated mean “Risk more, live more” and tie in with Pepsi’s slogan, “Dare for more”. Click on the image below to play the video.

The action was filmed in two main sets. The soccer players did their thing at Aerodromo Casarubios, a private airstrip 40 kilometers from Madrid, during which the temperature was 30c. In order to create the surf sequences two large water pools, a heated plunge pool and a wave machine were built. The surf sequences where shot at the Fijian Island of Tavarua using professional surfers who were made up to look like the players.

Credits

The Pepsi Surf campaign was developed at AlmapBBDO, Sao Paulo, by creative director Marcello Serpa, art directors/copywriters Dulcidio Caldeira and Cesar Finamori, agency producer Pierre Marcus.

Filming was shot by director Tarsem Singh via produced by Radical Media, with director of photography was Colin Watkinson and producer Tommy Turtle. Tarsem is well known for the REM “Losing My Religion” video but he’s a done a lot of work since then, recently attracting attention with “The Cell”.

Editor was Russell Icke at The Whitehouse. Post production was by Tom Sparks at Alteration Services, London.

Sound and music were produced at Barrera.

The music featured in the commercial is “Misirlou” by Dick Dale and his Del-Tones, known for his surf guitar work. The track was also used in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Pulp Fiction’.