Retro football adverts - Reebok, Nike and Adidas had great creative adverts in the 90s

In this article, Charlie Rowan reminisces about the golden age of great football adverts, the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Football adverts have almost always captured the raw emotion, the drama and the passion experienced by fans and players of the beautiful game.

Whether a commercial for a new pair of Nike boots flickers on your telly, or you see an advert on the back page of your morning newspaper about the coming season of the Premier League being broadcasted on Sky Sports - the hefty budgets some football-based companies have, create adverts that are extremely powerful. Before Nike Air Force Ones, and before Leo with Adidas and Cristiano with the ab-machine, came some top, top quality Football adverts.

But fans seem to chirp on about how much better things once were. The retro side of the game holds the nostalgia that football fans often crave, despite the fancy, high-tech graphics we see celebrating football today.

In this article, Charlie Rowan will reminisce about the golden age of great football adverts, the late 90s and early 00s.

Reebok: “Other Careers” magazine spreads

Reebok football boots were a lynchpin of sportswear in the 1980s and 1990s. The Bolton-founded company’s expertise in crafting effective adverts seemingly helped shoot sales right up - the British brand became so popular during the 80s that it briefly overtook Nike as the world’s biggest sportswear brand.

One advert, however, was like no other before. In 1998, the “Other Careers” magazine spread was born. There were five individual “Other Career” adverts, each depicting a Reebok-contracted footballer in an alternative reality, slogging away in the mundane job they wound up with, having spurned Reebok boots as kids. Most memorably was the advert centred around Wales and Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs, who was selling flowers next to a Welsh motorway in this “other life”. [See picture below].

This commercial included his quote:

“I was about 15, I think. My mum gave me the money to buy some new Reebok football boots. But on the way to the sports shop I decided to get a cheaper pair so I could take a girl to the pictures.” Along with the slogan for every advert in this campaign:
“There are other boots. But then there are other careers.”

Other elite footballers were part of this alternate world. Peter Schmeichel features in another ad, as did Andy Cole and Raul.

Denmark and Manchester United goalkeeping icon Schmeichel is pictured as a pig farmer in his home country beside a citation: “I sometimes wonder what I could have achieved if I had bought some good quality Reebok training kit instead of that cheap nylon rubbish.”

Arsenal cult hero Dennis Bergkamp was featured in one commercial as a cheese farmer in his native Holland.

This commercial aired in the US during the 1998 World Cup games.

“It was my birthday. My father gave me a choice – a pair of Reebok football boots or a new train set. I have never regretted taking the train set,” he says.

For such a memorable campaign, the sets weren’t expensive - it wasn’t a glitzy project.

Steve Bracewell, Reebok Europe’s former marketing director of Football and Rugby, was reported by CampaignLive saying: “Reebok is about creating possibilities for our athletes and players, developing the best footwear and equipment to enhance performance at every level of the game. That is why we chose to take an unexpected look at the possibilities of several of our players had they not worn Reebok.”

Check out our Podcast with Joe Foster, the Founder of Reebok!

Nike: “Brazil Airport” video

Nike commercials are designed to be noticed. The music, the stars of the videos, and the special effects - all significantly aided by the company’s budgets - usually create such memorable advertisements. One of the greatest of them all is Nike’s “Brazil Airport” ad - arguably the most famous football commercial ever released - for the World Cup in 1998.

The short film signified the start of a £100M deal with Nike becoming the Brazil national team kit manufacturer and sponsor. Brazil had won the previous World Cup, and had such a huge world cup pedigree, so there were high expectations before the tournament. The fact that Ronaldo Nazario was already a two-time World Player of the Year despite only being 21 summed up the country’s immense talents.

1998's Nike ad for Brazil's World Cup 1998 campaign

The concept of the video was simple. Brazil’s footballing legends are stuck in an airport, and their plane is delayed. Nike’s aim was to market sunny Samba football to the rest of the world and they captured that Brazilian greatness in this airport spot. Ronaldo, Denilson and other stars feature alongside the Sergio Mendes classic Samba tune - Mas Que Nada.

The current world cup adverts now are mostly CGI, Neymar taking a selfie, players playing in some mad CGI world against fantasy characters. The “Brazil Airport” commercial just had the players messing around in the terminal, performing tricky skills and flicks. It was simple and natural - and somehow that felt special.

The ad alluded to how Brazil’s World Cup ended, with El Fenomeno missing a goal made up by two queue barriers.

“At half-time [of a warm-up World Cup game with England in Switzerland], the commercial came on and everything went a bit quiet,” says Russell Icke - the editor of the film - to FourFourTwo. “That was quite unusual. And then when it finished, three or four people near the screen started clapping. It was the highlight of my career at that point and is still one of my highlights today.”

Adidas: “Footballitis”

In 2002, Adidas put together a mini-film called “Footballitis”. During this golden era for football advertisements, Nike were the top dog and their competitors Adidas struggled to keep up. However, this one is unforgettable.

David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and Alessandro Del Piero are the three-striped stars that feature among others in this World Cup promotion gag.

The Adidas commercial aired heavily during the 2002 World Cup

“Footballitis” begins with an expert at the “Institute for the Study of Footballitis” saying:

"We have discovered a serious condition. We call it Footballitis."

Some of the symptoms of this condition are albeit admittedly unclear - "Its symptoms were difficult to understand. We learned very little every day," explains an expert, who adds that there is no cure for the condition.” These symptoms are demonstrated with the world-beater Beckham doing ‘kick-ups’ without a ball, sitting on a chair and even small, footie-adept terriers who attract the whistle-blowing fury of referee Pierluigi Collina. There is also a slew of experts analysing and describing the affliction.

It was exceptional and iconic, nothing had been quite like it before - that is what made the ad so great, it was incredibly unique. The commercial was aired constantly in the lead-up to the 2002 World Cup and it gave viewers a glimpse of the fittingly-named “Fevernova” official Adidas match ball for the tournament.

These are some of the greatest football commercials from that golden era, and in my opinion, are unlikely to be topped by modern ads.

This is an original article by Charlie Rowan for The Sporting Blog.

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