Subliminal Messages

I noticed something while I was watching the coverage of the World Cup the other day. The FIFA marketing people had done a little wordsmithing to insert a subliminal command into their sponsor recognition. It is in the open, but disguised because of the keyword is a homonym. I'm going to compare a regular sponsor recognition ad with FIFA's.

Regular:
This program was sponsored by...
Lentils, "Taste the Brown"
...and...
Transmogrifiers 3: Revenge of the SuperHobbes


FIFA:
Sponsorship for FIFA was paid for...
by Budweiser, "The King of Beers"
...and...
by Adidas, "Impossible is Nothing"
...and...
by Coke "Open Happiness"

Now I'll have to watch the game again tonight, but the important part is the 'by' or 'buy' that comes right as they tell you the name of the product. Instead of being an itemized list of sponsors, the portion is now a list of commands that tells people to go out and buy the products of the sponsors.

The question is do they work any better than normal ones? Proponants of NLP would probably say yes, and I myself would guess that a scientific study would reveal that the effectiveness does increase. Now, the person equates the celebration of a good football game with not just the sponsors, but the phrase "buy Coke". Now all they have to do is detect which game you were rooting for and put the highest paying sponsors on your screen when they win.

I see what you did there FIFA. Very clever, and probably not the last we'll see of similar tactics. Of course, I'm sure their use will decline when an old man will tell them that this only influences the weakminded.

Marketing Brew Gone Bad

I just finished reading about a group of individuals that FIFA detained for 'ambush marketing'. In the original article, it describes a number of individuals wearing a nondescript orange dress. Apparently, this orange dress could either be worn by the Dutch women in question to honour the Queen or to market Bavaria beer.

FIFA, is not sponsored by Bavaria beer, and they don't want to create the appearance of 'watering down' their image by allowing another company free marketing at the event.  Peer Swinkels of Bavaria beer is doing a very good job at spinning this his way. I don't believe a word coming out of his mouth, but he is taking every chance to leverage the current situation to his advantage. He says that there is no link between the 36-odd women that simply chose to wear Bavaria's new dress, and instead says that it is very fashionable and appeals to our sense of freedom, saying that fans should able to wear what they want, and that corporate entities like FIFA don't have monopolies on colours.

Personally, I don't buy it, but FIFA should have been able to prepare a response for the press. Almost every headline on the subject suggests that FIFA asked innocents to leave, or that these women were wrongfully ejected. A number of articles, including a particular favourite, includes FIFA's response that it is "a clear ambush marketing action by a Dutch brewery company". The article writer reminds us that something very similar happened in 2006, except with branded uniforms. Occasionally, this is paraphrased in the article and attributed to FIFA as an association.

So Bavaria launches a new line of dresses that is still available on their website and 36 people all show up to the game wearing the dress. I don't see how anyone cannot see this as a Bavaria marketing attempt. However, unlike the Aqua Teen Hunger Force LED bombs, this was not done accidentally and without knowledge of consequences. Something similar was done in 2006, but with branded outfits. One wonders if they even had this particular instance in mind as a long-term plan when they developed the unbranded DutchDress. Whether that factored into Bavaria's design or not, Bavaria is playing their cards better than FIFA right now, and almost every article I read reflects a bias against FIFA implied in language choice and grammar.

I know journalistic integrity is, well, mythical. That's why I identify my biases, then represent both sides. That said, I think that there is a detail most people writing on this topic completely skipped. This is not a jersey at a sport game, this is a dress. What usually happens when two women are wearing the same dress to prom night? Alright, now take that and multiply that by 36, at a soccer game, where tensions are already high. How come there is no video of that? The answer is quite simple: these women were being paid to wear these dresses and have fun. If they weren't being paid, it be like 90210 all over again.