• by Karlene Lukovitz  @KLmarketdaily, March 6, 2018

Five UEFA champions show their stuff in a playful game of street paintball in the anthem TV ad for Pepsi’s just-unveiled 2018 global football campaign, “Love It. Live It. Football.” 

In the 60-second spot (below), Leo Messi, Marcelo, Toni Kroos, Carli Lloyd and Dele Alli splatter each other, along with buildings and enthusiastic onlookers, as they play soccer with balls filled with Pepsi-blue paint. The action is backed by Major Lazer’s remix of “Light it Up (feat. Nyla & Fuse ODG).” 

The TV spot will be airing in more than 60 markets worldwide. 

This isn't the first time that longtime UEFA Champions League sponsor Pepsi has employed paintballs for marketing creative. In 2015, the brand created a video that showed football freestylers using paint-filled balls to create their own blue and red art “masterpieces,” for Pepsi Max. 

This year’s campaign, from Pepsi’s in-house creative team, also features black-and-white portraits of the “Team Pepsi” players by renowned photographer Danny Clinch, which are used as a canvas/backdrop for “personal artistic overlays” created by visual artists from the athletes’ home countries. 

The creations are being used for out-of-home advertising and digital content, as well as limited-edition packaging around the games. 

During 2018, Pepsi will also be releasing “personal conversations” with players, and content from football media/fan culture channel COPA90, and offering access to and entertainment content during the UEFA Final.