This should be quite shocking after the advances of recent years, but sadly, there’s plenty of showing a large chunk of male football fans still regard the women’s game as, at best, a silly distraction.
If nothing else, their tired prejudices mean that they’re missing out on some wonderful sporting action. And that’s something that “La compil des Bleues”, created by Publicis Groupe’s Marcel agency for the French telecoms brand Orange, exposes brilliantly.
In footballing terms, the viewer is sold a glorious dummy. Star players from the French men’s national team – global names like Kylian Mbappé and Antoine Griezmann – are shown doing what they do: pinging over perfect crosses with Gallic flair, rising above defenders to head the ball past a hapless keeper, winning and scoring penalties, all to a soundtrack of over-excited commentators.
The film comes to a stop, then rewinds, revealing that the highlight reel was, in fact, taken from clips of female players, of the speed, trickery and power of Mbappé and Griezmann's fellow French internationals such as Sakina Karchaoui and Delphine Cascarino.
By showing the digital manipulation involved, how male players were superimposed over the original footage of their female counterparts, the short shows up viewers’ biases and turns perceptions on their heads. The tagline, “When we support les Bleus, we support les Bleues”, uses the masculine and feminine forms of the national teams’ nickname to hit the back of the net.
Orange, a partner of the French Football Federation, initially targeted the campaign at fans via sports websites and pay television channels in the run-up to the 2023 Fifa Women's World Cup. The ad quickly crossed over into mainstream media, mainly via editorial, with coverage in Time, The New York Times and elsewhere.
Many on social hailed the film as an ad for the tournament. But the whole brand association and how Orange started a conversation – clocking up 600,000 views on Marcel’s YouTube channel (for the English version alone) and a reported 16 million on TikTok – provided a magnifique example for others to follow.
Agency Marcel
±±¾©Èü³µpk10 is selecting its Cannes Contenders for 2024: brand building, creatively inspired work it hopes will do well at the International Festival of Creativity.
More:
Find all of ±±¾©Èü³µpk10's Cannes Lions coverage in one place here
_1.jpg)
.jpg)
