Land Rover is capitalizing on its role as the official vehicle of England rugby with a humorous TV ad contrasting the sport with England’s other major football code, soccer. Josh Lewsey, England and Wasps rugby player, walks with his dog past a team of soccer players. One player, Muggsy, provides the caricature of over-emotional over-the-top show-off. Lewsy’s dog knows just what is needed to take the piss with this mad man. The ad closes with the line: “Proudly supporting England’s real passion”, with the web address englandsrealpassion.com.
Click on the image below to play the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjI0u-qCmYI
The concept for England’s Real Passion was originated at Wunderman, and produced by RKCR’s production team to create the film along with two alternative endings. Sav Evangelou, Associate Creative Director at Wunderman said, ‘We’re really excited that Land Rover’s support of rugby is expressed through this short entertaining online film. We worked with Rainey Kelly to express a client’s message through story telling in order to engage viewers emotionally.”
Andrew Griffiths, the marketing director at Land Rover UK, told the Guardian that the viral ad – the first the company has created in around five years – captured the tone the company aimed to strike.
“We looked at a number of ideas from running straight corporate ads or car commercials to borderline edgy stuff,” he added. “We thought the idea of this competitive rugby versus football and the play between the two at the start of the season was the most effective strategy. The World Cup engages a much broader population than rugby usually does and we wanted an ad that appealed to a wider demographic.”
Directed by JJ Keith, via HSI, filmed in a day at Wormwood Scrubs, the creative team also found time to capture additional footage to be used on a specially created microsite: www.englandsrealpassion.com. Along with the film and its alternative endings is a competition to win RBS 6 Nations tickets and an interactive rugby game which promises top scorers a personalised England rugby shirt signed by Josh. There’s also a selection of outtakes of when things didn’t go exactly to plan on the shoot…
Click on the image below to play the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnQtw9kRgLA
Click on the image below to play the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDsgBpagfzw
To help drive rugby fans to the microsite, the film will appear across sites ranging from rfu.com and scrum.com to menshealth.co.uk, timesonline.co.uk and teamtalk.co.uk running until the end of October.