Advertising and sport

I was standing this afternoon at a tram stop in Bockenheim. In the tram shelter was a large advertising poster - an artist had gone to a great deal of trouble to create likenesses of the entire German national football (North America = "soccer") team.

It was not there though to wish the team well in the European Championship currently taking place in Poland and the Ukraine. It was, rather, a beer commercial.

In a country where beer brewing is still a very important industry, it probably makes sense to have a sponsored beer for a national sports team. At the same time beer and sport do not make the best companions. A player who was knocking back the team sponsor's product in copious amounts the night before may not be at peak fitness for the game the following day, and someone who has been doing this for days probably should not be capable of being in the team at all.

One thing that you realise quickly here though from watching beer commercials on television here is that no matter how much people drink, they never get drunk! Everyone is there looking cheerful (but not too cheerful!), and there are no loud-mouthed, raucous, aggressive individuals for whom standing up has become very difficult.

So I suppose a sports team could act in pretty much the same way? Drink cheerfully and never get drunk, that is. Not recommended. Myself, for the record, I have a maximum of two any evening (which is very rare anyway - even two in a week is not that frequent a consumption rate now).

Anyway for those of you who have money floating on the German team to win EURO 2012 (gambling - another habit not to be encouraged), fear not. Written on the bottle of beer on this poster was the German for "alcohol free"!

I never did get the point of alcohol-free beer. There are plenty of great non-alcoholic drinks out there, and gas-free as well (i.e. I do not drink Pepsi, Coke, Orangina and Fanta). Pure fruit juice with no added sugar - now that is to be recommended! The only problem with advertising it, is that many of the companies who make it are not household names and do not advertise! One wonders why not ....