The Hard Sell  

This is a great strand and tends to make me remember football tournaments more than the football itself. The 1998 World Cup was the one I remember the most and it’s weird to contrast Vauxhall’s approaches to that and Euro ‘96.

Thanks for this video, really enjoyed your tournament-by-tournament overview of the first 20 years of ITV's World Cup and European Championship sponsorships. The ones from the 90s that were woven into the opening and closing titles work well and have stayed with me (though those tournaments do coincide with my childhood, so there's that as well). Glad you mentioned Peter Brackley, he was a great football commentator and also a very funny man both in his broadcasting and in his cameos and stand-up work. His voiceovers help make the surreal Hyundai adverts from 2010. I could be getting mixed up, but I seem to remember there being a "sponsored by BenQ" additional sponsor message at the end of the closing titles of some programmes during ITV's 2002 World Cup coverage. Might have been from the highlights shows, which would have been a bit more widely watched and in an earlier-than-usual evening timeslot given that the tournament took place in Korea and Japan during the day. The 2006 ones stick in my mind as well, with the "Where do they get their energy from?" line from the EDF Energy bumpers absolutely seared into my brain. I could be completely wrong, but I think the person voicing that line is the Sky Sports football commentator Gary Taphouse (if anyone knows, feel free to correct or confirm this). As another commenter has mentioned, the Budweiser bumpers were a World Cup-themed spin on an existing advertising campaign from the time, gently mocking the stereotype of Americans not really knowing that much about football (or at least speaking about the sport in jarring Americanised terms). The Hal Butchgrass character is surely a play on the name of long-time ESPN SportsCenter anchor John Buccigross. The most memorable bumper was played during ITV's live semi-final, where the Brad Lescarbo character exclaims: "We've got a semi on!" Puerile, but I remember it 18 years on.

This year, the European Cup is being broadcast on American Television and on FOX to boot.

The mary Whitehouse experience went off hard about the national power advert in one of their radio series around series 3 end.

Love the content. Keep up the good work. Skys football coverage has had some interesting sponsors over the years, especially the efl

Nobody: ITV World Cup 2006 coverage: WHERE DO THEY GET THEIR ENERGY FROM?

A cute detail on the Carlsberg Euro 2004 is we can barely see other UEFA sponsors such as Canon and Coca-Cola, and even Fujifilm which wasn't featured in that tournament. Thing is, it's true that the Euro 2004 was the blandest shit ever, but for me as a Greek person, these ads are burned in my brain even to this day because we had the exact adverts and I have fond memories from that time.

100 times more interesting than watching sport itself ;p

damn, i thought this was an older episode but it's been uploaded less than an hour ago, I've never been this early here

Bit of an area of expertise, so more than happy to wear the anorak to beat all anoraks here: UEFA always stipulate ITV have to carry their worldwide sponsors at the Euros, in a similar way to how they used to with the Champions League (think Ford, Heineken, Sony etc.). That's why they can't negotiate with Sega/Vauxhall/whoever anymore to sponsor THEIRS specifically. What they can do is get a company to sponsor their highlights coverage, because those aren't covered by the same rules. There were quite a few of those Lucozade Sport ones in 2010, none of them particularly interesting or noteworthy though. Much of a muchness with the one shown, all very eerie and faintly sinister. The Budweiser spots were terrible, but they made more sense in context: at the time, they were the official beer of the Premier League, and their marketing campaign was based around how Americans don't get football. Lot of jokes about franchising Arsenal to play in the Lake District, or merging the two Manchester clubs, or having an NFL coach become a manager. All for shit beer. In fact, Budweiser isn't technically classed as a beer in Germany because it contains rice (our version would be Quavers/Discos not being 'crisps'), so they had to compromise and put some writing in Chinese on the hoardings at that tournament. The Vauxhall ones actually had two different sets. The POV ones were shown going into the programme (integrated in the titles, as has been mentioned) but between breaks they ran some match footage 'comically' overdubbed with stupid jokes. Even Fantasy Football were taking the piss out of it: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BD-Y5wRPw1k.html Also, Travelex signed in 2002 because no one else wanted to pay the fee ITV were asking for, and so they got it at a cut rate (and the 2003 Rugby World Cup too). Kickoff times were rubbish for ad revenue because it was in Japan/Korea, after all.

Don't remember the Great Shots at all, of course the bigger memory was staying up late to watch Ireland live on UTV. The only football poster I ever had was one of the Ireland team from that World Cup. (I may have mentioned that before...) We're All Part of Jackie's Army (And in the Absence of England, So Are You.) Sega also figure in the nostalgia of that era, summer meaning playing FIFA titles while cousins are holidaying. (May have mentioned that before too.) The actual football passed me by in Euro '96, must have been a reflex thing, you know, England. My focus was on Cartoon Network's Toon Cup '96 with its 'vote for your favourite toon' event which parents must have absolutely loved on a frigging landline in those days... And Always Coca Cola at or around its peak.

My face lit up when I saw here was another 'Brough to You By...'. Definitely love this as a strand :) I can't judge if this is too anaoraky to bring up, but regardless, are Vauxhall's World Cup 98 sponsors a relative one-off in that they connect straight to the ITV opening titles/bumpers via the use of ITV's theme for the tournament (a remix of Jean Michel Jarre's Rendez-Vous 98 courtesy of Apollo 440). I can see how other stings from different years are integrated too, those which also intrude on the ITV titles rather than appearing cleanly before/after them, but this specific approach feels rarer - more like This Morning with BT or something.

Don’t forget proctor and gamble; they bombarded the sponsor ads I think 2016.

Regarding the Vauxhall sponsorship of ITV's World Cup coverage, the advertising bumpers consisted of snippets from the coverage dubbed over by Mike Osman and Peter Brackley (RIP) for, ahem, "comic effect". Example below: During the gift exchange before the Iran-USA game: Iranian captain: (dubbed with the absolute worst Iranian accent ever) In spirit of friendship, I give you this ceremonial hubcap! USMNT captain: (dubbed just as badly) Geez, buddy, all I got you are these flowers! Never mind Bend It Like Beckham, this was more Curl It Like Cringe.

What was itv sponser euro 2012