The moment a great athlete retires, or appears to be retiring, the advertising industry reaches for its handkerchief with one hand and its storyboard with the other.
Michelob Ultra, the Anheuser-Busch InBev brand that served as an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup, responded to Argentina's loss to Spain in the tournament final on July 19 with an ad celebrating Lionel Messi's two-decade career in the competition. The spot, created by Wieden+Kennedy New York, appeared on digital and social channels and on Telemundo shortly after the match concluded — a timeline that suggests either remarkable speed or considerable advance planning. (Or both.)
The creative conceit is simple enough: rather than itemizing drinks on a bar tab, the receipt tallies Mr. Messi's tournament accomplishments — matches won, goals scored, records broken. The spot ends with the player walking off the field as the tagline "Superior is Worth Playing For" appears at the bottom of the receipt.
"We took something as ordinary as closing out a bar tab and used it to itemize 20 years of extraordinary moments," Borja Eizmendi, a copywriter at Wieden+Kennedy, and Randy Diaz, an art director there, said in a statement.
The campaign extended beyond video. Michelob Ultra commissioned a mural of Mr. Messi in the Little Argentina neighborhood of Queens, painted by an artist known as Andaluz, and placed billboards in Times Square displaying the tab of his accolades.
Mr. Messi's presence in World Cup advertising this year was, to use the technical term, everywhere. According to System1, an audience measurement firm, he appeared in 18 of the 80 major World Cup campaigns tested across the United States, Britain, and Argentina — nearly a quarter of the total, including work for Adidas and Lay's.
Whether Mr. Messi's World Cup career is truly over remains unclear. But the bar tab, at least, has been settled.
Original story published in Adweek: "Michelob Ultra Tallies Lionel Messi's 20-Year World Cup Legacy"