“…What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself…”
Abraham Lincoln – former US President
Robert Green’s error will no doubt become the domain of advertisers as the inevitable ‘Danny Bakers 101 goal keeping bloopers’ and numerous other World Cup tosh makes its way onto DVDs and books destined for every boy’s Christmas stocking. But the biggest advertising blooper ‘ever’ was committed by ITV who managed to switch in an advert for Hyundai cars at the very moment England scored their goal.
ITV have apologised blaming a transmission error. What on earth does that mean? Of course there was a transmission error as watching choreographed Hyundai cars pretending to play football with a giant ball, at the very moment Steve G scored, was not what the nation had switched to high definition (HD) TV for.
For Bodyproject. as a communications pundit, there are numerous points to discuss following this match. First of all, how does commercial broadcasting stand up to licensed broadcasts from the BBC. Second, whilst HD is technically and visually superior, it does have a significant transmission problem and third, the woeful excuse from yet another major corporate entity, intent on ‘spinning’ rather than explaining honestly why it happened and what it is doing to prevent a reoccurrence.
The fact is commercial broadcast remains a pain. Watching any sport on channels such as Eurosport and Sky Sports is challenging. Try tennis when the same idents and woefully painful adverts are shown again and again between every set or between every round in say boxing. It is almost brain washing and, if anything,serves to put you off the product.
The World Cup of course is ‘big bucks’ advertising and the super brands are in town. But it doesn’t matter how clever Adidas is combining a classic film with cameos from Beckham, Noel Gallagher and Ian Brown; it is still an intrusion when played just before the teams walk out, just after the national anthems and for ITV, in error, as the key goal is scored. For me, there needs to be a balance, and at the moment it isn’t being struck, as most comment I am picking up is that people much prefer the BBC for its uninterrupted coverage – which is not great for the brands sinking all this money into promoting their product!
Equally ITV’s HD switch on has all been to coincide with this world showpiece event, so for them last night was as big a disaster as that of Robert Green’s faux-pas. Their explanation is woeful and to my communication colleagues at the broadcaster I say wake up and hold your hand like Green and apologise properly. You are not Toyota or BP shying away from reality – face up to it.
HD is suffering teething problems namely in that it cannot regionalise so I sometimes am sat in Liverpool having to watch London’s weather (yes we are still south east centric in the world of TV transmission). It also shares channel feeds and so watching Rafa Nadal playing at Queens is suddenly interrupted for fifteen minutes to allow BBC2 to join in, credits and punditry an all, leaving me frustrated at losing the match I was enjoying. At the moment it is all over the place.
I can say that at this time, I and the rest of England, cannot wait for the Algeria match. Mainly as it may still be at risk from transmission interruption but it will be certainly free of Hyundai interruption.
Bodyproject 