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TOTW: World Cup Fever! The Best Star Studded World Cup Ads

0
10 years
by in Recent Posts, TOTWs

There is no denying that the World Cup is the biggest sporting event of all. After all, football(soccer) is the world’s most loved sport. Sorry all you American football and basketball fans, but the World Cup blows both the Super Bowl and the NCAA Final out of the water by a order of magnitude. And, when the most people are watching, that can only mean one thing: ads. And lots of them. The Super Bowl is known for it’s great ads, but the World Cup once again destroys it’s Americanized equivalent, with better, more viewed and more expensive ads. Many sports companies (and non-sport) make incredibly star-studded ads to increase it’s overall amazement factor. In some it worked, in some it looked like they just added in the stars for the fun of it.

Neymar, Chicharito, Robin Van Persie, Gotze, Jozy Altidore, Schweinsteiger, Fabregas, Suarez, Demarcus Beasley, Sturridge, Rio Ferdinand, Baracry Sanga, Thierry Henry, Cristiano Ronaldo, Rooney, Ibrahimovic, Higuain,  Eden Hazard, Pique, David Luiz, Iniesta, Pirlo, Tim Howard, Thibaut Courtois, Thiago Silva, Landon Donovan, Messi, Aguero, Ozil and more are featured in all these ads combined. Even Nicki Minaj, Dr. Dre, Lebron James and Michael Jordan are in some. If you know anything about soccer, you know that every single one of those players I just mentioned are in the top 50 players right now. So this must have cost a fortune. If they spent this big amount of money on one ad, you would think it would be amazing right? Well, some are and some aren’t, so I’ll let you decide. Here are the best of them:

Nike’s Last Game


Out of all the World Cup ads, this one is the best done. The animated short released by Nike depicts what would happen if clones of the best soccer players took the place of the original players because of their consistency. But, lead by the old Ronaldo, the original best 11 players from this world cup take on the clones. They really nailed the players personalities and bodies, creating a fun little short, promoting their new slogan, Risk Everything.

Beats’ The Game Before The Game


The newly acquired company Beats really went all out for this world cup. Their ad, chocked full of world-class players, is mainly featured by Neymar, and his father, who is saying dramatic and inspirational words of encouragement in between shots of the best players on the planet washing their socks and listening to Beats. A little overboard, but I have to say, the whole this is very dramatic.

EA’s Always In The Game

EA went for humor for their ad, and they nailed it. Perfectly. A a promotion for their World Cup version of Fifa 14, they had Landon Donovan, who made headlines for not being picked for the USA world cup squad, winning the world cup on Fifa. That’s funny, by itself, but they topped it off by Landon muttering under his breath, “I’m not going to brazil.” in the classic chant sung by fans. Well played EA, well played.

Nike’s Winner Stays


Another ad by Nike, but this time featuring a bunch of real, top-class players. Well, not at the start. The idea of this ad is that a group if 11 on 11 ametuer players, when they decide that the winner stays, can suddenly turn into players like Neymar and Pique whenever they feel like it. Handy. The camera work in this ad is great, having foreground people walk right in from of the camera so the young player can be switched out by Rooney or Eden Hazard. Very creative, and very well done.

McDonald’s Gol!


Like usual, McDonald’s made an ad that really had nothing to do with their chain of fast food resturants. Basically, a bunch of people were doing trick shots and fancy juggling in public. Sure, it may be fun and entertaining, but the only way you know it’s for McDonald’s is the big M logo at the end. Sigh.

Adidas’ The Dream


For some reason, Adidas decides that their commerical would be another star studded ad about Messi having an nighmare/dream thing about all the other players and whether he trained hard enough. Again, like Beats’ ad, it may be dramatic, but not a great way to depict the party attitude of the Brazilian stadiums and jumbotron gatherings.

 

TOTW: Top 5 Webby Award Winners

0
10 years
by in TOTWs

Every year, since 1997, 1,000+ judges and millions of average people have participated in the annual Webby Awards. There are the Grammys, the Emmys, the Oscars and the Tonys, all for entertainment. Why not an award for everything related to the internet. Hosted by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), the Webbys has 100+ awards, ranging from games to social media to every type of advertisement there is. Since there are so many categories, really to much to look through them all, I have picked my 5 favorite winners. Here they are:

#1. Flat Vs Realism

Flat Vs Realism is a amazing web based story about the ongoing battle between flat design and realism. Basically iOS 67 vs iOS 7. Powered by inTacto, Flat Vs Realism won the award of Self Promotion/Portfolio, winning both the Webby Judges award and People’s Choice award. FVR is incredibly well done, balancing top class flat design with incredibly realism design depending on the timing in the story. I highly recommend you go here to experience the wonder of what good web designers can do.

Screenshot 2014-04-28 17.58.31

#2. Bob Dylan TV Mashup

This ingenious website is basically set up like a TV, where you can change the channels, and even turn up the volume the old fashioned way. There are about 15 actual channels you can flip through, all having real looking shows from that channel playing. But there is one difference. In the background, you can hear Bob Dylan’s song Like A Rolling Stone. But when you look at the people on TV, it looks like the people are actually singing the song. Of course, this website won Best Editing, and they deserved it. Great idea and very well executed.

Screenshot 2014-04-29 12.34.09

#3 Smart TXTBKS

Smart TXTBKS is not only a great idea, it is a very relevant idea and certainly will help people all over the world. Well, kids in Philippines, at least. In the Philippines, most people can’t afford a smartphone, and only have an old flip-phone, so their children still have to lug 100 pounds of textbooks to class everyday. This is getting to be a bigger problem, since some studies and news reports have shown that kids are even getting deformed by this task. Smart TXTBKS is a solution to that problem. The actual hardware of TXTBKS is a little sim card, which the kids can put into their old phones. On the sim cards are lots of different exercises and learning material for different subjects. This turns their phones into a textbook, letting them rest thier back for once. Smart TXTBKS won the Webby award for Education/Reference.

#4: Glasses.com App

Glasses.com is one of the biggest glasses shopping sites, and with the rise of high-tech advertisements, Glasses.com decided to ride the wave with their app, subsecuently named Glasses.com for iPhone. The app is basically a shopping tool, allowing you to look at all different types of glasses. Except for one thing. To win a Webby, which the Glasses.com app did in the Best Use Of A Camera category, you need to have some kind of gimmick or unusual or cool use of technoogy. The Glasses.com app actually lets you take a 3D picture of your face (by taking many puctures of you while you turn your head), then puts a 3D picture of the glasses they are selling on your face so you can try it on withput having to leave your house. This type of app is no doubt the future of shopping technology, and certainly deserves the Webby.

glasses.com-app-1
#5 The Nike SB App

Last but certainly not least on this list is Nike’s SB app. Nike, as you probably know, is very integrated into sports equipment culture. All the time they are trying to branch off into different areas of sport, such as their recent development into smart watches, and their probable partnership with Apple for iWatch. Recently, Nike has delved into the giant sport of skateboarding. Skateboarding is a incredibly popular sport, with million and millions of tricks out there to learn. That’s why in Nike’s app, Nike SB, Nike brought together some of the best skateboarders out there to record and map out all the tricks known to mankind. The result is SB, an app where you can look through videos and demonstrations of how to do tons of different tricks in tons of different categories. This app won the Webby for Sports (handheld).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afeypAqwgng

Every year, the Webbys recognize many amazing projects and products that use the internet and technology to their advantage. I touched the surface of all the amazing Webby award winners, so if you would like to see them all for yourself, go right ahead here. I also found some interesting Webby award nominees that did not win, so here are my honorable mentions:

Google’s Project Loon

Kringl Proof Of Santa App

Virgin America’s Safety Video (must watch)

Urbanears Headphones

Google’s Talking Shoes

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