Channel 4 is pulling out all the stops to stoke up ‘friendly’ rivalry ahead of this week’s historic rerun of the world’s oldest international football fixture, England v Scotland.
TV and social promos see an England fan and Scotland fan go head to head, passionately displaying their admiration for their own team vs their disdain for the opponent. The promos run through what makes England better and what makes Scotland better, using a mix of archive match and fan footage, stock footage, black and white footage and animated sequences before landing on the modern day players showing their talent.
The aggression rises throughout the promo as each fan gets more and more worked up, before the irreverent endline cuts in: “It’s just a friendly, honest.”
In the national press, as well as regional titles both North and South of the border, Channel 4 remains neutral by creating one sided ads, but for both teams, taking the iconic visual representation of fan made football flags with playful taunts sewn in.
On the OOH front, Channel 4 has worked with Curious to craft the flags running across OOH and social. Curious has reworked the broadcaster’s initial designs using a combination of photography to establish the texture and lighting and CGI for the lettering.
To adapt the OOH for social, individual elements will be explotred and type-set before applying the assets to a flag animation which is being worked on in tandem with the creation of the flags.
Channel 4 added: “Who other than Channel 4 would do a football campaign championing support for both teams? As a broadcaster proud to serve the length and breadth of the UK, both English and Scottish fans are our audience – this campaign is a true celebration of, and play on, being altogether different.”
