Durex Takes Down Flopping Soccer Players in Comically Ridiculous #DontFakeIt Ad

Don't fake it—on or off the football field—says Durex.

The condom brand is hoping to capitalize on excitement around the World Cup—and particularly, the spectacular dives that players take while competing after barely getting touched—with a new #DontFakeIt campaign aimed at keeping consumers busy in the bedroom.

The goofy ad below shows soccer players who look like they're from the local recreational league offering ridiculously melodramatic performances—trips, grimaces, flops. Naturally, it's all in slow motion, and there is opera music playing in the background. It's chuckle-worthy not only because it's absurd, but because it's not that far from the reality (though the stakes are considerably lower).

Durex also conducted a survey that found 40 percent of 2,000 men asked would turn down their partners in favor of watching a game, with many offering hackneyed excuses about not feeling well. The campaign's tagline, though, obviously calls to mind a different kind of faking—one that Durex has opposed for some time. So, you know, wherever you are and whatever you're doing, don't fake it.

It's all reminiscent of Puma's "Love or Football" work from a few years back, which offered a psychology study of hardcore Newcastle United fans to see whether they cared more about their wives and girlfriends, or their team. In that case, the women prevailed, slightly. That was club soccer, though.