The announcement of the Women’s World Cup in France is being hailed by fans for its “genius” and unexpected twist.
French telecoms company, Orange France, first announced the ad earlier this month ahead of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The ad opens with footage of the France national team on the pitch, as soccer stars Antoine Griezmann, Olivier Giroud and Kylian Mbappe are seen kicking the ball.
The footage continued to show the team winning the match, prompting an enthusiastic reaction from the viewing crowd. But the ad then revealed that there was a surprising twist to what viewers had just seen.
” Just Blues These feelings can give us,” the letter reads, referring to the French men’s national soccer team. “But they are not the ones you just saw. »
From there, the ad revealed the editorial and visual effects applied to the athletes, including layers on faces and bodies, with the end result showing that the iconic edit really put the stars in the spotlight.
And the Orange advertisement set out to show the same football match from the start, but with players from the women’s team, such as Sakina Kerchaoui and Salma Pasha, instead of their male counterparts.
The video ended with a message that read: “In Orange, when we support the Blues”. The organization then added the “E” to the soccer team and created “Bleues”, the nickname for the French women’s team.
Commenting on the ad on YouTube, the organization added: “#TeamOrangeFootball proves that women’s football is just as technical as men’s football.”
Many people on social media praised the ad and its development, describing it as “genius”.
“Using visual effects for good. This is a great French advertisement for the FIFA Women’s World Cup,” one wrote, while another added: “It was the French advertisement that blew our minds. »
A third wrote: “The French advertisement for the Women’s World Cup is one of the biggest marketing ads on the market. [displays] I saw this year.
Lauren Markwith, a TikTok user who also frequently posts football videos to her account, responded to the announcement on the platform, calling it the best way to “get the people, the nation, behind your team”. She praised the propaganda message about women and men in sports.
“Obviously, France put in an exceptional performance in the men’s tournament [2022] “The World Cup and women are a big force too,” she said in her video as the announcement aired. “At first I was like, ‘Uh, another commercial for guys, right before the World Cup, but just look.'”
She added that she “got goosebumps” from watching the French ad.
The ad was also shared on reddit, with one person responding, “I was actually in shock. A clever way for people to confront their biases.”
Studies over the years have shown that women in sports experience discrimination because of their gender. In a January 2022 survey of 1,950 male football fans, researchers at Durham University found numerous examples of men “displaying deeply sexist and misogynistic attitudes” towards women in sport.
But in a study published in the Sport Management Review last week, researchers found that the performance of male and female soccer players was assessed in the same way, when their gender was not specified.
France’s first match in the Women’s World Cup will take place on July 23, where the national team will meet Jamaica.
