In America, we use football to sell beer. In the UK, they use football (which we call soccer).
This summer Budweiser UK, an official Premier League sponsor, launched an initiative, backed by The League Managers Association, called ‘Budweiser Coach the Coaches.’ The initiative features leading professional managers spending the summer holding training sessions with non-league football clubs across England with the aim of helping non-league coaches enhance their training techniques and strategy, leading to a confidence boost heading into the season,
The parties involved assembled footage from the campaign to share their results. At the beginning of the video, I’m informed I should be 18 years or older to watch it. This left me waiting for a boob to pop out, some gritty injury, or at least some good old-fashioned British cursing, but I was left thoroughly disappointed. Instead, Stuart Pearce talks tactics and strategy, without so much as a “bloody hell” or a “wanker.” Presumably, it’s the association with an alcoholic beverage that prompts the warning, which is quite different from here in the states, where we serve up hyper-sexualized beer ads with SportsCenter every morning. It’s interesting to note the similarities (sports!) and differences (lack of overt sexuality) in Budweiser’s UK strategy, which seems to appeal to the serious side of a game many take very, very seriously.