If Choreography Were an Olympic Sport, Lacoste’s Rio 2016 Ad Would Surely Win the Gold

Created by BETC and its music subsidiary BETC Pop, "Support with Style" follows a troupe of "beautiful supporters" through Paris, whose landscape has been transformed into an eerily empty (and clean!) playground for Rio 2016 stadium seats. 

The clip reinforces Lacoste's relationship with the French National Olympic Committee (CNOSF), for whom it will outfit all French Olympic teams. The partnership was born in 2013, and will conclude this year (barring an extension of the contract). 

It's also a modern echo to Lacoste's own history: The brand was founded in 1933 by tennis player and inventor René Lacoste, himself a 1924 Olympic medalist. 

"We wanted to put the supporters at the forefront in the most elegant way," says art director Pascal Moncapjuzan of BETC. "The video is serious if yet a little twisted—it’s our way of bringing the French touch to the Olympic Games!"

The movement, pace and rhythm represent support for French teams—albeit in a manner more artistic and constrained than the naturally occurring shouts, cheers … and jeers. In apt patriotic style, the clip was directed and choreographed by Parisian artist duo I Could Never Be a Dancer, with music from French electro group The Shoes. 

"The directors, who are, above all, great choreographers, directed each movement and counted off every step by microphone," Moncapjuzan describes.

Too bad they won't be in Rio to traffic-manage the crowd in real life. Even if it lacks the unconstrained, hysterical glee of a crowd, this pretty, poppy and polite manifestation of zeal is arguably more agreeable than the vuvuzela, whose unmistakable tooting in the hundreds during the 2012 FIFA World Cup in South Africa was likened to "a swarm of angry bees." (No hate, though. We still use ours, if only to distress the neighbors.)

CREDITS

Client: Lacoste

Client Management: Amandine Morel, Sophie Bernard

Agency: BETC & BETC Pop

Agency Management: Marina Zuber, Maud Ferrandon, Angelique

Chaulin, Isabelle Tardieu, Brune Faillot

Creation Director: Antoine Choque

Music Creation Director: Christophe Caurret

Creative Supervisor

Art Director: Pascal Montcapjuzan

Ad Assistant: Ulysse Tanguy

Copywriter: Valentine Gilbert, Romain Pergeaux

Traffic: Kemi Zinsou

TV Producer: Laure Denizot

Production Company: Psycho

Sound Production: Gum

Director: I Could Never Be A Dancer

First Broadcast: 28 April 2016

Media Plan: Digital From 28/04

Available Formats: 90 Sec, 30 Sec, 15 Sec

French And Worldwide For Each Format