News NRL’s season 2020 ad: Simply the best ... or simply divisive?

Spoonman84

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The NRL’s newest advertising campaign is a salute to rugby league’s modern history and a celebration of some of its current superstars.

And in true NRL-style, there’s also some political grandstanding intertwined, all while rocking along to the 1980s Tina Turner anthem ‘Simply The Best’.


Simply the Best - Revived

2:03


The advertisement begins in the lounge room of a young Cameron Smith then rolls through some of the greatest grand finals of the last 30 years.

There’s Joey Johns heroics with a punctured lung down the blind side to Darren Albert in 1997, breaking Manly hearts and sending the city of Newcastle into a wave of celebrations for

There’s Scott Sattler’s cover tackle on Todd Byrne in 2003, etching his own slice of grand final history to sit alongside his famous father John playing the 1970 grand final with a broken jaw.

There’s Benji Marshall’s flick pass to a powering Pat Richards in 2005, the Tigers winger playing with 11 painkilling injections to score one of the all-time great tries.

There’s Greg Inglis and the Goanna celebration to smash a red and green 43 season premiership drought at Redfern, South Sydney, the pride of the league.

And who could forget Johnathan Thurston, one of the great grand finals in 2015, when JT nailed the field goal in golden point to guide the North Queensland Cowboys to their inaugural premiership.

Then there’s an acknowledgment to the current generation of superstars headlined by Cameron Smith, Tom and Jake Trobjevic, Latrell Mitchell and Tyson Frizell.

The newest generation of stars writing the newest chapters in NRL history.

The narrative is complete with an acknowledgment of Smith becoming one of the all-time greats, the first player to crack the 400 NRL match milestone.

Whatever your political persuasion, it’s hard not to have the hairs on the back of your neck standing up when Alfie Langer, Wayne Pearce and Andrew Ettingshausen are lighting up the original ‘Simply The Best’ television commercial.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/nrl/nr...t/news-story/265418402f34b7543fa301c4636cc5fd
 

Spoonman84

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Typical NRL ruining something that could be good with PC garbage and political grand standing.
 

Alan79

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I'd only noticed that Thurston was still being used and wondered if they were having trouble finding role models. I think that most adults that watch the game will watch regardless. So pandering to historical moments in the game will just confuse the next generation of fans.
 

JackDog

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So the NRL has given up on attracting young guys to the game. There was a bit on Ali Brigginshaw for the girls (although she’s out for 2-3 months with sindesmosis), but it was basically aimed at 30-50yo’s

I think I saw a couple of flashes of dogs jerseys in there somewhere. I’d have to watch it again but it looked like about half dozen teams didn’t get a look in at all
 

c-b-b

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Todd Greenberg and the NRL don't have an original thought. Everything seems to be going back in time or copying concepts from other games.
 

Chrisaaar

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Thought I was watching an ad about south sydney. The nrl can't even hide their bias in a promo ad lol
 

Sleeky

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Trbojevic brothers in 1996 playing football???

Ummm Tom was a newborn and Jake 2.

At first I thought “meh, seen worse”. Now it’s down to that level. Don’t they do research in marketing??
 

bricktamland

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Spoon fed the political correctness again... do we really need the gay stuff ? Like it’s nrl for fuk sake, milking our game
 

Kempsey Dog

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I couldn't get through it without turning it off with a few glaring errors in the beginning
1. Trobojevic brothers (Tom wasn't even 1 in 1996)
2. Belmore 2010 (shows Hazem getting carried off in 2009)
Then the cringe little girl singing ...
It's a shit ad imo, the era of the re-boot
 

DinkumDog

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I don't get the beef with it - I think it's fine and caters for everyone - all teams, genders, races - the past, the present and perhaps the future.
I think there's much bigger things to be concerned about than picking this apart!
 

The_Chimpster

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I think the funniest nrl ad campaign was when they used "this is our house" by Bon Jovi. When he was asked how he felt about his band's song being used as the nrl campaign, he responded by saying he had no idea what nrl was, but still got paid regardless
 

Scoooby

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Whenever I see NRL promo advertising, unless it's specifically aimed at promoting our match, I rarely see any Bulldogs representation, even in the crowd/fans.
We are invisible.
Nope I notice that also, in most adverts an we might get a showing once!! Fuck them, compared to us the others don’t mean shit.!!
 

diddly

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Like the music, so many great clips of the game that have could have been used yet they go down the pc path - a few bits are embarrassingly cringeworthy.
 

Rodzilla

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the only people being divisive are the people that cant handle 0.6 seconds of PC coverage and complain
 

Howard Moon

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that kid looks more like Cooper Cronk.... something not right here
 
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