Serendipity in the Underground
On a slightly cold Sunday afternoon after a brief errand in the city, I happened to take a subway back home instead of the usual taxi ride I am accustomed to. As I was happily escaping the organized chaos that is the Shanghai subway, a huge poster was hung near the exit begging to catch my attention. I paused and looked at it for a second:
Yes it was one of those ads that is suppose to make your heart sink and make you all warm and fuzzy inside (especially for a nationalistic/sports loving/advertising appreciating/China residing person such as myself) but somehow it just didn’t affect me the way it should have. Walking home, I thought about why my reaction was as such: were the Chinese citizens portrayed in the exact manner that the world (and Chinese government) harshly views them – as a swarm of millions working hard just so that a few individuals can prosper? No, that wasn’t it. Instead it turned out that I had already seen this poster before…but there was no Adidas, and there was no China. Huh?
This Adidas advertising campaign had begun officially on November 30, 2007. On the other hand, the ad that had lit a fuse in my memory and no doubt was the creative ‘inspiration’ behind the Adidas campaign, had actually started months before - in the beginning of October. As you can see, the idea is…very much the same:
Upon returning home and trying to find out more about this shocking revelation, I noticed that the Adidas advertising campaign created by the TBWA advertising agency also included a video commercial apart from the prints. This again seemed like plagiarization of the video created by Markom Leo Burnett, the agency which prepared the Turkcell advert months before. See both adverts below:
Turkcell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isT4DXK0rag
Adidas: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx0LP0pSm38
At the end of the day, whether TBWA or Adidas knew about the Turkcell/Markom Leo Burnett campaign before is irrelevant as they released an exact copy of a product 2 months too late. While the concept of the people of a country rallying behind their sports stars isn’t exactly groundbreaking, it is still interesting to see that what was meant to be the ”largest campaign ever created by a single Adidas market” for the single most important sporting event for a country that is so eager to show itself in a positive light – to be in the end a complete copy. Luckily for the involved parties (China/TBWA/Adidas) this embarrassing news has not hit any mainstream news outlets, in fact it is hard to find ANY information on this quite amusing advertising fiasco.
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Turkey vs China
One certainly positive aspect of this rather strange ‘sync of fate’ and one that I would like to focus on is the way in which the exact same idea was executed differently on two nations. This advertising coincidence serves to be a rather interesting light in which to analyze and compare Turkey and China. While Adidas had the bigger budget and hence ended up with a slightly more polished product, the print adverts themselves highlight key difference between the Chinese and Turkish people that explain frighteningly well these countries’ current sociopolitical framework.
These two seemingly opposite countries actually share a great deal of similarities: a great and tragic history that saw them go from world powers to the complete opposite until recently, a sense of nationalism that is not only widespread and relished but practically required, a culture that is as a rich as any, and a population that is in large part poor. However while the people of these nations face similar daily challenges on a day-to-day scale – the societies they constitute in fact hold much different roles and thoughts on their nations fate, and we can see this clearly when looking cExercise/”>Losely at the print ads.
China
If you look cExercise/”>Losely at the China advert, the people are colored and detailed in a way to signify the lack of importance of each individual. It is more a sense of a large crowd that is begging to be portrayed, rather than a collection of individuals. In fact, you can notice that each and everyone in the crowd is hoping to give a helping hand but only a small percentage of the whole crowd is in fact of any use – the rest are ‘excess labour’ if you will. These individuals who aren’t of any help are all grouped into the same category and are faceless in the eyes of the observer. You can also see that each person that gets to help is exuberant in a reckless manner that implies that they are just happy to be there, regardless of what it is that they are actually doing (that is if they even know what they are doing). The football star meanwhile is serious and focused solely on the goal at hand, due to the Chinese people and government’s strict expectation of success and the consequences of failure. However while the responsibility is solely on the star’s shoulders, the credit is also reserved for him and the Chinese ‘flag’ – he and the uniform of China are the only parts of the picture with any color.
What this reiterates is that China is not larger than the sum of its parts, it is in fact something totally different. While China is named ‘People’s Republic of China’, the nation and its destiny are controlled by the very few – the communist regime in place is likely to keep this structure in place as long as it possibly can. One last point of interest is that the picture sees no adversaries. While the fact that China has been isolated from the rest of the world until very recently is one way to explain this, it makes much more sense to think that China in fact sees no adversaries in sight at all. It is actually its very self that it needs to battle to succeed. The endless crowd of people that symbolizes China, is ironically also the ‘playing field’. This ‘match’ stretches all the way into the abyss, and this highlights that China has a long way to go before it can declare any sort of victory.
Turkey
When you look at the Turkey advert, you can see the approach is very different, and this is no coincidence. The ‘people’ are represented in much fewer amounts and it genuinely feels like each persons contribution is similar and actually noticeable to the overall goal. The faces of the Turkish supporters helping out are much more serious than their Chinese counterparts. Much like their superstar, the people understand their responsibility and the importance of what they are doing. Consequently, both supporters and the main star share size, color, and importance in the advert. This is no exaggeration as Turkish football supporters proudly view themselves as the 12th man in football games, and their effect is undeniable.
The adversary in this advert is none other than ‘the West’. Turkey has struggled for decades to prove to the West that it is on equal footing with the rest of the advanced world. Funnily enough, much like its battles to join the European Union, the Turkish public tries here in this advert to ‘win’ through unfair means. Turkey still pushes today to be accepted into the EU despite the long list of EU regulations it has yet to meet. The setting of the advert is in an arena, where the rest of the world watches cExercise/”>Losely and the different media bodies in attendance can reflect the story in the manner they wish. Ultimately, it is satirically fitting that this advert – meant to signify the strong nationalism in Turkey where everyone not only wants success for the country but actively has a part in it -ends up showing that its people are doing the complete opposite of their intentions. Much like how going on the field and actually playing alongside the players would be a type of nationalism that would cost the team the game, the Turkish people’s overabundance and misdirected sense of nationalism in dealing with national issues also ends up clouding the future of economic and sociological development.
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From Chance to Fate
What started merely as a funny coincidence, ended up being quite a representative study on two of the most important yet relatively unknown nations in our modern world. Turkey on the one hand serves as the canvas of a modern Islamic country, the hope that East vs West, Islam vs Christianity, and nationalism vs globalization can all prosper in the same world. It’s people, slightly blinded by nationalism and overcharged on pride, struggle daily to contribute to the countries’ growth in anyway they can, even if it is rashly going on the football pitch and helping the motherland towards victory. China meanwhile, represents the future of the world, economic expansion, the final steps towards free trade, and a dormant giant ready to takeover the globe after centuries of isolationism. It’s people, are also blinded but for them it is communism that acts as the blinding powder. They are a country used to poverty and suppresion yet everyday have hope that their allmighty goverment can release the shackles from under their feet and provide them with a better life – and they will go to great lengths to allow a chance for this to happen, even if it is serving as the football mat under their star’s feet or standing cExercise/”>Lose and ready at any chance their nation might need them. Steep hurdles are ahead for both these nations and its people, but let us not forget: impossible is nothing.