Hit or miss? The best and worst football club Christmas adverts
Creative type Steve Howell casts his critical eye over Christmas adverts produced by Chelsea, Liverpool, West Ham and Celtic.
Think of a Christmas advert and your mind may conjure memories of “A dog is for life…” or any number of classic John Lewis commercials that have become synonymous with this time of year.
Whatever brand came to mind though, you almost certainly didn’t think of a football club. But football clubs are brands in themselves and recently their Christmas adverts have become a thing.
The commercialisation of football is nothing new, but in a social media-rich world, clubs are seeing content creation as part and parcel for any team wanting to have cultural resonance.
Engagement online – away from the games themselves – is of significance because, at its most simple, the more followers a club has, the more they can charge more for sponsorship deals.
Nowadays, the bigger clubs have their own studios and equipment to make the production of such films as unintrusive to the players’ time as possible.
Usually this content is filmed midweek after training, and always with the risk of being pulled at the manager’s whim should they have had a poor performance in the days leading up to it.
Sponsors sometimes literally get 20 minutes with three players to film whatever content they’re trying to make (and all three players need equal showing, to differentiate between sponsoring the club, not the players themselves).
As for the club-produced content, those rules aren’t quite so strict, but they do like to feature past and present players, with as many celebrity-fan cameos thrown in as well, to appeal to their broad fanbase and to reiterate that Idris Elba is as much of a Gooner as you are.
And so, we find ourselves in a world where football clubs make Christmas adverts, usually promoting their latest Christmas jumper or other merchandise that makes for good stocking filler.
It’s a chance for the club to show a bit of brand personality, resonate with fans and get their whole community into the Christmas spirit.
‘Confused’: Chelsea’s Christmas advert
Chelsea are the club that has gone really all-out in terms of production values with their Christmas advert. They’ve created a slick film about a boy on a stadium tour who gets distracted by the various festive shenanigans going on around the ground – mainly, it seems, a photoshoot of players and celebrity fans (Suggs and Central Cee make an appearance) wearing the latest Chelsea Christmas merchandise.
Thid is ultimately what confuses the message – you’re left thinking this is purely about driving purchases in the club shop, when actually the club are promoting the work they’re doing to help those sleeping rough in south-west London, albeit in a strangely vague manner that makes you think they’re not quite sure themselves what they’re doing, but know they’re going to do something. Which, I guess, is all that matters.
‘Naff’: Liverpool’s Christmas advert
Liverpool have staged their commercial at their Christmas Party! Don’t get too excited: it’s an unconventional mix of dodgy discotheque, darts, DJs and karaoke with plenty of current and past players turning up alongside many of the ‘LFC Retail Community’, which I think could be football-club-speak for the shop assistants in the club shop.
Luis Diaz terrorises the dance floor like he’s been doing to defences all season, Ian Rush does some very dodgy dad-dancing before humorously falling asleep on the sidelines along with John Aldridge.
Ultimately, Liverpool’s advert feels like many Christmas work parties up and down the country – forced fun that’s a bit boring and naff. But as long as the men’s team are flying high in the Premier League they can make whatever content they like and fans are going to see the funny side.
‘Woeful’: West Ham’s Christmas advert
West Ham, on the other hand, are having a more difficult season and their woeful Christmas advert, ‘Give the Gift of Claret & Blue’, feels as unimaginative as their recent on-pitch performances. It’s simply players and fans opening presents filled with Hammers merchandise – and that’s it. For nearly 90 very long seconds.
A comment on their Facebook page from one fan read, “I’d like a win with 11 players on the pitch for Christmas, please”, which sort of sums up the advert better than I ever could. It goes to show that when these commercials are done badly, especially when the team isn’t performing well, it can exacerbate the feeling of a club being disconnected from its fanbase.
‘A laugh’: Celtic’s Christmas advert
Here’s one club that knows exactly what their fans want. For the past 10 years, Celtic have been dutifully creating Christmas adverts with the explicit intention to connect with fans and have a bit of a laugh.
This year’s effort is nearly four and a half minutes long and tells the fictional tale of lifelong supporter, Joe and his granddaughter, Lilly, as they embark on their first Christmas without Joe’s deceased wife, Margaret.
It’s not filmed with the highest production values, nor will it probably resonate with most non-Celtic fans. But if you’re one of the Bhoys you will love every cameo and nugget of Celtic history that’s thrown in.
With Henrik Larsson, Joe Hart, Kasper Schmeichel and archive of 60s legend, Jinky Johnstone, all making an appearance, it’s an inter-generational story about making dreams of playing for the green and white hoops come true – which, it turns out, is exactly what every Celtic fan wants for Christmas.
Steve Howell is executive creative director at Dark Horses.