“On the heels of reports that Apple Inc. has become dissatisfied with its advertising, two of the company’s top executives are going public with how much they love a new ad by Beats,” Chris O’Brien reports for The Los Angeles Times. “The latest ad from Beats to debut is called, ‘The Game Before The Game.’ Though shorter versions run on television, the five-minute version is online and focuses on the upcoming World Cup.”
“After a short buildup, the athletes pop on their Beats headphones and a pounding song called ‘Jungle’ by X Ambassadors and Jamie N Commons kicks in to provide a thumping, hand-clapping soundtrack,” O’Brien reports. “In other words, it’s much more youth-oriented and rocking than Apple’s recent fare, such as its “What Will Your Verse Be?” campaign. By comparison, that Apple ad is meditative and philosophical and reflective. Nothing that quotes poet Walt Whitman is likely to get you stomping your feet.”
“Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook and Senior Vice President Eddy Cue, both huge Duke basketball fans, praised the efforts by Beats,” O’Brien reports. “‘The Game Before The Game. The team at #Beats captures it perfectly. A must watch before #World Cup,’ Cook tweeted on Wednesday. ‘As a huge sports fan, I love ‘The Game Before The Game,” Cue tweeted on Monday.”
Read more in the full article here.
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There was passion in that video. Emotion and perfect timing with the World Cup starting.
Oh yes and one more thing:
Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land
Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land
Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land
Eng-er-land
Eng-er-land
Come you lads, do us proud.
I like England alright, being a fan of Premier League, but nothing would thrill me more than seeing the U.S. go to the final. I know that’s a long shot, given their group.
Its an even longer shot for us seeing our group.
As much as I would like to see England win the cup, there will be an early exit as usual. Sorry guys, it is written!
So true, I’m afraid. Uruguay and Italy…chance of a snowball in hell. Oh England used to be so great…alas no more, money and fame have sapped their will and drive for excellence.
I’m English, but am not interested in football, but get to work on many big football matches, including several World Cups, and I must say that this advert does a great job of capturing the emotions of the players and supporters in the build-up to an important match.
The advert is very similar in style to some of Apple’s efforts and I’d like to think that both Apple and Beats will continue in this manner.
@Putin –
Q What do you call eleven men sat watching the World Cup Final on TV ?
A The England football squad 🙂
Advertising that transcends its own nature. The best kind
Or exceeds its purpose. Good point hannahjs… Writing it down in my book of stolen ideas from you.
I’m an American and I have to confess, I will probably never truly ‘get’ the World Cup (it’s just a video of a kid to me, I don’t have any idea who these people are. Yes, yes, you can curse my yankee soul to hellfire and damnation at another time). My wife on the other hand, is from Pakistan, and she has already set aside time to watch the games and is rabid with anticipation, she loves the ad. I don’t know that it says much about the headphones themselves, but the advertisement is definitely accomplishing its mission. That’s the whole point of an ad, I do believe. 😉
Thanks to your wife, you have a rudimentary understanding of the emotional impact of the World Cup, and are no longer lost in a sad American wilderness.
I guess I’m still in that wilderness. I don’t have time for the World Cup, the Salmon are running and I have a bigger fish to fry.
And besides, why as Americans should we apologize for not being soccer fans? Who cares if Spain plays football or England plays baseball? Or Japan plays basketball? We’re Americans. We have our own sports and if other countries don’t like them that’s just fine. If you can’t dribble or throw a ball maybe you can kick it around the field? It’s an uncomplicated simple sport.
Well we did invent baseball… we just lost interest with it centuries ago as it was a kids game. God I hated rounders at school.
Sure, but then an appellation like “World Series” is a little OTT, don’t you think.
And, no, we don’t care what sports Americans play, that’s fine. But we also don’t suggest Darts, Curling or Elephant Polo are of global significance or even worthy or general awareness, either.
In other words, I think a Pakistani can be forgiven for a general lack of awareness about Baseball, more than an American can about a general lack of awareness about football (with a spherical ball).
Im supporting the fish
“Just a video of a kid.” Wow.
I’m an American too. When I watch the video, I see a whole different world. The harbor, the scenery. Brazil. Beautiful. I don’t pretend to know who the young man being featured is, but I see someone who is clearly an important athlete. Hence the title “The Game Before The Game” which was presented for you to see, as well. Intuitively I know the game is soccer.
The young man talks to his father. He’s using an iPhone with a pair of Beats headphones. In that private world created by those two items, he talks to his father. His father is clearly important to him. He calls his father “Head.” I wonder about that. When I was a kid, we sometimes called my father “Top.” I get a tinge of nostalgia. His father says it is another important day for “us” and tells his son to run like it is the last day of his life. This moment with his father is part of his “Game before the Game.” How he psyches himself up.
There are shots of Brazilian back streets, they look poor. Suggesting to me this is where this “kid” comes from. His father tells him to run like a crazy man, for family, friends, etc.
Outside people are setting up satellite dishes. There is a sense of urgency. With the Superbowl, I think we Americans have a sense of tradition, but this is something different. You can sense a buzz in the people in the video. Soccer, of which I know nothing about, appears to have the frenetic speed and elegance of basketball merged with the violent contact of American football. This is a “world” thing and we aren’t really a part of it, and the world couldn’t care less.
Then Jungle, by X Ambassadors & Jamie N. Commons, (.69 on iTunes) starts to play. Pre-war excitement in the form of a driving beat, theme for the “Game before the Game.” We are taken into the worlds of players and fans alike getting ready in all their different little ways. Wagers, kissing tattoos, jumping, writing down wishes and putting them in their drinks, screaming, and of course listening to music in Beats Headphones.
I wondered if the players always get this much private space before the game to prepare and reflect.
A quick shot of a beautiful Brazilian ass, presumably a cheer leader?
As they say, people from all walks of life going through rituals.
By the end of it, I really want to see the game.
This is how advertising should be.
Generally we get cartoon bears with toilet paper hanging from their asses.
Glad there are some with an open mind
So, people who agree with you are “open-minded” while people who disagree with you are not? And if someone speaks to me in a foreign language that I do not understand, I must be close-minded and bigoted? People are different. The same ad will not connect with everyone. I don’t care for American sports, either. I must be narrow-minded.
Conformity = diversity! /sarc
No, you don’t have to agree with him to be “open-minded”, you simply have to get something out of the video without shutting down immediately because it is about Football, in which you may have no real personal interest.
The shutting off is closed-minded. The appreciating of unfamiliar scenes, other cultures, rituals, relationships, fulfilling dreams, etc. is what makes the beholder “open-minded”. You still don’t have to like football, or the song, or Rio de Janeiro.
The ad simply didn’t connect with the guy. There has never been an ad in the history of advertising that has connected with everyone. It’s a pretty large leap some of you are taking in attributing this to a ‘closed mind’. My God. A lack of enthusiasm for the World Cup or a particular ad does NOT warrant being labeled ‘Closed Minded’.
If you can’t see the universal human competitive component in this you are hopelessly stuck in the American system of hype and sensationalism. Do you think that Marshawn Lynch wouldn’t make a great soccer player, marathon runner, or infantry soldier, if that’s what he chose to do? This video is about how a warrior prepares for battle. It taps an atavistic place in each of us. This ritual is as old as the first human discovering how to make a club out of the leg bone of a bison. It is bigger than one human being, one sport, one nation, or one culture. The music taps into that ancient paradigm. There is a warrior in all of us. Some of us fear it, and some of us embrace it. This is about embracing the warrior.
you’ve written a great take on it.
Great take. It’s amazing to me, reading the replies to it that some people think the ad is about football. It’s about every hard thing a person can possibly be faced with in life. And how the devices help you ready yourself for it.
I didn’t find it any less introspective than the What Will Your Verse Be ad, but certainly more intense and immediate. The Game Before the Game is all about what is going on in the heads of the players.
I can see that… but still, it really makes me want to see the World Cup game!
This is the type of advertising that will help the iWatch take over the world. When I said some weeks ago that the Beats acquisition would enhance Apple’s brand equity (amidst the gnashing teeth of many around here), this is exactly what I meant. The era of wearables is upon us and it will launch with a campaign unrivaled by anything from Apple since the dancing silhouettes.
Here’s the thing… I watch that ad and I’m sold on soccer, but not so much on Beats Headphones. They’re awful pretty, the bright blues and reds, but I have criteria. The iWatch may do well, if so, there is a pent up demand outside of stock analysts I haven’t experienced. Long before the iPhone, the general person on the street would often say, “I wish Apple would make a phone.” Except for analysts, I don’t hear anyone saying, “I wish Apple would make a watch.”
Then again, Apple has always been the master of showing us stuff we never knew we needed until it was in front of us.
They do black as well as dark blue.
The new Solo 2 is aimed at a more diverse musical clientele.
The sound of the Solo HD ‘phones is very ‘muddy’, but by using an EQ app, they can easily be made to sound very good indeed; they just need everything above 750Hz boosted.
I use EQu with all my ‘phones, and it transforms Beats headphones.
Not that mine were new, I got them from eBay, just in case… ;^)
Yes an enlightened view I think, too many on here are narrow minded in one way or another. Only time will tell if the Beast acquisition works out but the potential is considerable. The Apple brand must not be diluted and this new popular brand gives them massive potential for all sorts of products and avoid that while opening up a whole new avenue of cool to many who have no interest in what they perceive as the aloof, ‘pretentious’, Apple brand.
Great ad, even greater sport!
GER, POTUGAL, GHANA, USA.
They will lose to GER and Portugal. The referee will make sure they don’t lose against Ghana. That won’t be enough. Result…..USA out first round.
Okay, now I get the whole buyout thing, along with the iPhone 5c, and all that extra messaging stuff that is going into iOS8: Apple wants to grab its next billion customers before the current billion die of old age.
Not a bad slant, todays cool is tomorrows mobility scooter.
So the gratuitous sex scene and then the flash of the nice ass cause everybody needs to play the game before the game right?
Soccer ended for when I saw David Beckham take himself out of a key game (World Cup qualifying?) with the score tied and a few minutes left on the clock because he was “tired”.
I thought to myself: Joe Montana would need to have a cracked skull before he would take himself out.
End of story.
Boy, Americans really don’t get soccer. Players don’t take themselves out of the game, the coach does. And with a game tied with just a few minutes left, of course you replace a midfielder who has run all over the field for almost 90 minutes and replace him with some energetic offensive specialist to try to make a difference and score a goal. It’s more like a star pitcher in baseball reaching a pitch count of 120-130, eventually you’re going to put in your reliever to make those final three outs. Joe Montana didn’t have to play of fence and defense on a much bigger field with no timeouts or stoppages. No knock on American football, it’s a great sport, but soccer (or the original football) is known as “the beautiful game”.
And Beckham didn’t have to picture five simultaneous receiver routes in his head and check off on each one repeatedly while monitoring four 300 pound defensive linemen, a linebacker spying the route, and a blitzing safety, knowing he’s going to get hit and taken down as he releases the ball to the open receiver in the split second that he is open and hit a spot the size of a basketball hoop 40 yards downfield that is moving with the receiver.
Don’t underestimate what it takes to play American football or Joe Montana. He was the best that ever was at the most demanding position in a brutally demanding (both mentally and physically) game.
I really do respect American football (I’m Canadian) and respect the athletic prowess of Joe Montana, as well as Brady, Manning, and Brees nowadays. The debate of which sport is “best” is futile (I would argue that hockey players are pound for pound the toughest around). But too many Americans, spoiled by their abundance of sport, give short change to the sport of soccer. What Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar et al do on the soccer field are as impressive as any NFL player. The competition is global. Soccer is the chess of sports, learning to play takes minutes. But to stand out among your peers on the global stage takes something special. Until Americans learn just how hard it is to score a goal at the highest levels of soccer, will they begin to appreciate the athleticism involved in the sport.
I was ready to forgive you until you mentioned Montana and Manning in the same sentence. 🙂 Brady might run a close second, but neither Brees nor Manning ever belonged in the same stadium.
10KM. Did you see how these guys can RUN AND keep te ball almost attached to their feet?
Did you see Neymar yesterday? Or do you just have an opinion based on presumptions? Joe Montana, the name says it all….
FORZA AZZURRI!
Brilliant advert.