GPY&R Melbourne launches international scale ‘There’s no other sport like AFL’ campaign
George Patterson Y&R Melbourne has launched a new blockbuster campaign for AFL this week. The campaign showcases people from all over the world being shown the game for the first time- to prove that Australia’s game, is unlike anything else in the world.
Everyone from South American soccer fans, Texan gridiron players, New York street-ballers and even Welsh pig farmers were asked to provide a fresh perspective on AFL and highlight the aspects of the game that make it unique. The campaign, which is set to the ACDC mega hit ‘long way to the top’ stirs up some national pride for our game, the only sport invented in Australia just for Australians.
Says Ben Coulsen, executive creative director of GPY&R Melbourne: “AFL is a unique product to advertise. It’s one of the country’s cultural icons and shiniest brands. It is passionately followed, discussed, debated and dissected by millions of Aussies and the media every day. So it comes with a big challenge – make sure the ads live up to the product. It’s got to be big, exciting, surprising and show off the amazing skills of our game. It’s one of the jobs that makes working in the ad game an absolute thrill.”
AFL chief executive officer, Andrew Demetriou, adds that developing the next chapter of Australia’s Game was a natural step following the response to last year’s campaign.
Says Demetriou: “The Australia’s Game campaign continues to celebrate our national competition as this country’s only Indigenous sporting code while highlighting the many extraordinary threads throughout the game. With AFL matches played across the country involving players and fans from every conceivable walk of life, a campaign centred on the next step of Australia’s Game was the obvious choice.
“This year’s campaign takes us beyond our own country and reminds us why Australian football is truly great and uniquely Australian.
“Whether it is the remarkable on-field feats of current champions like Lance Franklin or Jobe Watson, or the story of Nicky Winmar famously lifting his St Kilda jumper, Australia’s Game is steeped in the extraordinary.”
Continues Demetriou: “Australian fans have always been aware of our players’ extraordinary feats but through this campaign we can see that this is a sentiment shared the world over.
“Ultimately this campaign reminds us that this is our national game, a game with amazing elements that makes it extraordinary, and not just in the eyes of our own fans.”
Client: AFL
Marketing Manager: Stephen Gray
Agency: GPY&R Melbourne
Executive Creative Director: Ben ‘Gazza’ Coulson
Senior Writer: Alex ‘Go Cats’ Wadelton
Senior Art Director: Paul ‘Free Kick Sampi’ Meates
Agency Executive Producer: Romanca ‘Meat Pie’ Jasinski
Group Account Director: Julian ‘Hit the Boundary’ Bell
Senior Account Director: Kirsten ‘Carn Hawks’ Darbyshire
Senior Account Manager: Rachel ‘Gimme Bartel’ Semmens
Production Company: Exit Films
Director: Steve ‘Carn West Coast’ Carroll
Producer: Tobias ‘Cats Man’ Webster
Cinematographer: Ryley ‘The Ambassador’ Brown
Sound: Alec ‘Footy Mad’ McCloskey
Editing: Graeme ‘Plugger Pig’ Pereira, The Butchery
Online: Jon ‘Back Pocket’ Holmes / The Refinery
Music: ACDC “Long Way to the Top” (Alberts Music)
Music Supervision: Karl “No Collar, No Entry” Richter, Level Two Music
Sound Design: Paul “Shortbread” Le Couteur, Flagstaff Studios
52 Comments
Fuck I love Footy!!!!
Love it! But the game still confuses me..
Top shelf stuff. Makes me proud to love AFL as much as I do.
AFL 1, NRL 0
Greatest AFL ad I’ve seen. Top stuff all round, people.
Except for Demetriou, he’s a knob. Go Saints.
Outstanding.
Bloody great advertising.
Confident, simple, entertaining, beautiful quality, and ACDC- WOW.
Not an indulgent creative sank, just great stuff the audience will love!
Well done.
“That’s what I’m talk’n bout!!!”
AFL always wins the sport ad contest in Oz. Always the bigger, better idea, better strategy, better quality than soccer NRL or any of the others. This one the best AFL as yet. Even though the one with all the big post to make the players play all over the globe was amazing to look at, this one feels better, has more of the right kind of soul, and makes you really proud of the game.
….. please stop astroturfing, it’s so transparent.
You knobs did the same with your Schweppes ad (which was much better than this dross).
This is beige. It’s not ‘top shelf’ and definitely not the ‘greatest AFL ad I’ve seen’.
NRL is a better game – AFL ads are better. Nicely done. ACDC vs Jessica Mowgay – end of story.
thats just a new version of my ad.
Nice one, Meaty Bites.
Have to say, I like that more than the cheese rolling epic.
Brilliant except for the superimposed games on each screen.
Great way for Patts to spend a wad of the money the AFL got from Seven and Foxtel…but it’s worth it. Makes the game feel bigger, especially for its supporters.
Hey Dear Patts employee… said:,
I hope all is well.
I’m the guy that wrote it’s the greatest AFL ad I’ve seen and I don’t work at Patts. I’m a creative who’s in to footy and I think this ad is the greatest AFL ad I’ve seen.
How quickly we forget.
Same strategy. Same client. Better idea.
Bloody great ad. Makes the NRL ad look second rate, and has real guts and pride to it. Great pictures and you can’t go wrong with Acca Dacca. Epicness all around.
They couldn’t get Jessica Mauboy?
Were those comments part of the creative presentation in the earned media section?
yawn. Feels fake and uninspiring. Nothing for the punters here.
Unreal, why pretend that anyone outside of Oz has even heard of AFL. Hilarious.
@ delusional….ummm, isn’t that the whole point of the idea? Goodness me, I can appreciate the general critique of ads on here, but you should at least need to understand the ads first.
Just showed a bunch of people at the office here and they all did exactly what happened in the ad.
Great job, gets right to the heart of the game.
Couldn’t be more true, there is nothing like our game!
Hey astroturfing. Hoping you might share with us the best ad you have made, then we can determine how qualified your criticism of this work is.
8.5 out of 10.
Great idea and strategy. Good production. Great music. Great feeling you get from it.
Great strong work for big brand clients.
I like all their modern activation/digital stuff, but this is what they do best.
Love it. Anyone who disagrees is retarded. Great to see Steve and Toby smashing it out with the big boys. And I bet the budget was nowhere near as big as it looks. Book yourself some finals tickets…
Not a bad way to get a round the world ticket.
Would have been better if it was real tho.
Love the comment that there is nothing in this ad for the punters, yeah I can’t imagine why a footy fan wouldn’t want to see their game glorified all over the world, set to acdc. Well informed mate.
That’s awesome! Exactly what AFL are all about and not just the usual sport montage that usually happens in sport marketing. Great to see one Sport putting some cash and effort into their Brand on TV.
That’s one way to blow Jess Malboy out of the water. ACDC kills it!!
Footy fans will love this – and let me say that’s all that matters – but, man, is this ad delusional.
Patts, the self-commenting and lame defending of your own work is getting embarrassing.
That’s cute. AFL imagining what it would be like if the rest of the world actually gave a damn about it.
I am neither an AFL fan, nor do I work at Patts, but I love this work. You can tell it is written and created by people who know and love the game, for people like themselves. Makes you want to play it, makes you want to watch it, makes you want to talk about it.
yeah nup. the montage was better with when the Dropkick Murphys were involved. as a fan I didn’t get the goosebump moment.
still wish i’d done it though
contrary to most comments, I actually think this one will resonate well with the fans (of which I’m one), but not so much with the industry. So not a win/win, but not a bad result either.
@ seriously. Why would they not stick up for their work? People are free to say stupid shit about it, they are equally free to say good things.
Wadelllllllltonnnnnnn.
So much better than last years!
Feels like a reinvented version of the old campaign
Love it!.
This is good. It contains an insight and some truth. The channel change device is a little contrived for me. Why not just show the good folks our game without that bit of make-believe? But apart from that very small point, this is good. And a good follow up to Warren’s famous campaign. I reckon fans will love it.
The only insight and truth it provides is that everyone at patts obviously has it written in their contracts that they must contribute positive comments to this blog regardless of the work and its quality.
Truth be told it is better than the NRL version but it really should be much much better – and FFS of all the hours of highlight footage and all the great moments our game provides why do we only see marking marking marking. 7 marking shots (many repeated) and not much else. Where’s the tackles, the hip and shoulders, the goals, the snaps, the run and carries, the drunk over weight cheer squad members, the myriad of moments that makes this game (unlike this ad) great.
Feels like the pretty much like the same construct as the great ‘I’d like to see that’ campaign from the 90’s. That is to present the AFL to people from O/S and get their (amazed) reactions. The previous campaign version was far stronger for me because they used famous o/s sports talent (McEnroe/Carl Lewis etc) to prove the point and had a better line.
Don’t get me wrong, this ad is good, it’s very good, and a hell of an improvement from what the AFL did without Patts last year. It’s just not as great and original as the 90’s campaign from the Palace.
Hey Australia, you can bang on all you like in a TVC about how great your game is,
but nobody outside of this country is interested, otherwise they’d all be playing it too.
On a global scale, AFL is about as relevant as tiddlywinks.
But this is nothing like it.
He got higher than me? Trippin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ4GA3GB3Wk
@nothing like it
Hey, nice to meet you but fuck you… both big agencies in Melbourne comment in spades on their own shit. Look up any Clems ad and you’ll see the same.
New South Welshmen don’t need to, mainly because they don’t give a fuck what anyone on the internetz thinks.
Really? This ad is as contrived as it comes.
I wonder what they really showed the people on those screens to get their reactions.
The Palace did the best ever AFL ad. Wish I was at the Palace at the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqVk9qvyeoM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqVk9qvyeoM
@Oi Oi Oi!!!!!
That’s bullshit – look at the post for a Clems TVC further down the page to see that’s not true. Very few comments, so Clems aren’t banging on about their own work.