The Sun - new football season

Link to story and video here



It's tempting to think that the softened visual and verbal tone of this new campaign, devised by WCRS&co, is an attempt to set the Sun apart from its departed Sunday brethren, to ditch the cockney-geezers-shouting schtick, and be seen as sober and, dare one say it, cultured. However the adverts were clearly in production long before the walls around that particular fan got a lot browner, so what's the idea?
I suspect they're catching up with the fact that football is increasingly a thinking man's game. Or woman's. When arch-strategists like Wenger and Mourinho roam the touchlines, and Fergie's power lies as much in his head as in his hairdryer temper, the old days of "I hit the ball first time and there it was in the back of the net" seem a long way away. The average fan likes to talk strategy, not just tactics, loyalty, and partisanship, and they want to be fed arguments and lines for the pub.

I do think the advert is flawed though. The animation - by Richard Swarbrick, best known for his rendering of Gareth Bale's sensational performance against Inter Milan - depicts a moment that simply does not need bringing to life. I don't need Terry Venables to tell me how good the overhead kick was, especially not in prose over-reliant on clunkily inserted similes. If you're going highbrow, take it all the way and stick poetry over the top. It's really not as daring a departure as The Sun would like you to think.