101 sports updates: FIFA launches TV campaign for World Cup 2014

FIFA launches TV campaign for World Cup:

FIFA has launched a global TV advertising campaign for the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil™ to highlight our commitment to global football development and to raise awareness in the fight against discrimination and match manipulation. The animated TV campaign, called Elements, features 30-second and 15-second spots and will be beamed to audiences across the world by FIFA’s Media Rights Licensees during the FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

FIFA’s Media Rights Licensees allow FIFA to show institutional and social campaign spots as part of their agreements to broadcast matches from the FIFA World Cup, and to support FIFA’s development work and football across the globe. This gives FIFA access to a potential viewing audience of billions of football fans during our flagship competition.

“This huge platform gives FIFA an amazing opportunity to speak to a global audience,” said FIFA Director of Communications & Public Affairs Walter De Gregorio. “And we wanted to use this platform in the right way – to tell the world there can be no place for discrimination of any kind in football, or in society, and to raise awareness around the threat of match manipulation.”

“We also felt it was crucial to let more people know about our work in football development, which is where so much of the proceeds from the FIFA World Cup go to. Few people know that FIFA invests more than half a million dollars every day in developing football everywhere, from the grassroots up.”

Combined with a simple, direct message, the Elements campaign uses an intricate animation technique known as “stop motion” to create a truly distinctive feel designed to stand out in one of the most competitive advertising environments of the broadcast calendar.

With “stop-motion” animation, individual frames are set up and shot one at a time to create a highly distinctive visual feel that has been used to memorable effect in TV shows such as Pingu and The Magic Roundabout, and in blockbuster films such as Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and the Wallace & Gromit comedy series. The technique was one of the first forms of animation used in moving images, dating back to the 19^th century. 

London-based agency Klein & Sons produced the Elements campaign, working with specialist Dutch animator Rogier Wieland.

FIFA and the production team chose this approach as the ideal vehicle to deliver FIFA’s messages to a global audience in an original way. 

Each Elements spot features objects from the world of football such as boots, footballs, goal nets, goalkeeper gloves, corner flags and referee whistles to tell a compelling and highly accessible story.