• by September 7, 2005

HEINEKEN, THE NEW GATORADE -- It's become almost a cliché on Madison Avenue to see some performance enhancing beverage juxtaposed against images of sweaty athletes engaged in world class sports competitions, but who would have imagined extending that metaphor a beverage that is consumed primarily for its, well, performance-dulling effects. The creative team at improbably named ad agency named StrawberryFrog, of course. The berry-flavored amphibians, who shook up the ad world only weeks ago by wresting premium beer marketer Heineken's global ad account from incumbent Wieden & Kennedy and challenger McCann-Erickson, have brewed a strategy that positions the beer brand in the global sports marketplace more like an isotonic than a not-so-distant cousin of gin and tonic.

The massive global ad campaign centers on Heineken's sponsorship of the Union of European Football Associations' Championship League tournament, the biggest soccer event outside the World Cup. It is to soccer what the NFC or AFC conference championships are to American football's Super Bowl. Anyway, it seems the fruity lilly-pad hoppers have hopped on the notion that nothing goes better with sports than hops - you know, the fermented kind. And since international soccer is possibly the only professional sport that would allow such an explicit connection, Heineken became its sponsor.

But what will global sports authorities think when they see the three-minute commercial StrawberryFrog will break Sept. 13 on TV outlets across the globe, the first part of a campaign that will air in 154 countries over the next nine months?

Here's a sneak peak of the spot, dubbed, "One Big Game:"

It opens on a soccer ball ricocheting off a goalpost and out of the stadium, bouncing in a variety of settings--a rural wedding, a rooftop pool at a posh hotel, and a TV studio, to name a few. In each case, a passersby chases after the ball, following it into the next setting.

The spot's tagline: "Welcome to Champions Planet."

Thank goodness they took a pass on their original concept for a slogan: "Breakfast of Champions."