Pass It On: Nike’s New World Cup Ad Is More Entertaining Than The World Cup

Nike’s latest World cup promo video is out, and it’s blurred the pretty-much-non-existent line between commerce and entertainment – it’s also far, far more entertaining than a game of soccer could ever hope to be.

It’s the animated story of how a dastardly fellow rationalised all the fun out of football, creating an army of clones and turning the game into a dull, risk-averse cash cow…I know! Imagine that, right?

Boring soccer matches have turned the world into a Blade Runner-esque dystopia, but Ronaldo (old Ronaldo) isn’t having it. After a lot of moody walking around, he rounds up the world’s leading Nike-sponsored footballers (Neymar, Christiano Ronaldo, Zlatan Ibrahimovich and, uh, Tim Howard) to defeat the clones in a one-off, sudden death contest. If you can ignore the fact that Fifa basically are the evil, shadowy organisation depicted in the video, and if you can suspend your disbelief at the idea that these pampered multi-millionaires play purely for the love of the game, then the video is properly heartwarming. In a Nike-sponsored kinda way.

Behold:

–

The last one was pretty good, too:

–