Home Ice Advantage

Grant Tabler

Professor Evans

AHSS 1080

6 April, 2010

Home Ice Advantage

            The Olympics are an event of epic proportions. It is an arena of athletic achievement unrivalled by any single sporting championship, one fuelled by national pride. However, along with national pride comes a sense of favouritism, not just for the athletes of your country, but also for athletes of your chosen sport. When the winter Olympics begin anywhere Canada’s bias is set squarely on Hockey, never was this truer than in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. The darker side to this national pride is the advertising capitalization. Coca-cola released a commercial for the Vancouver Winter Olympics aimed at unethically exploiting national pride in order to boost sales of Coke.

            The commercial has come to be titled “He Shoots, He Scores”  (Henderson)  As that is the only line of dialogue in the commercial, although it is repeated quite frequently throughout. The ad begins with a young boy playing hockey in a walkway with a Coca-cola can. Evidently Coca-Cola plays the role of catalyst to the goal’s success. The boy gets a goal, albeit on an empty net, and cheers “He shoots, he scores, Canada wins a gold medal!” (Henderson) The shot then switches to two boys practicing in a locker room with coke on the bench, presume

bly before a hockey game, where we again here the commercial’s title reiterated. Thereafter we see a quick shot, from a distance, of a group of people celebrating a goal while watching TV. We start to notice the pattern of jubilation from proud Canadians at whatever monumental event is being broadcast. Next the commercial moves to an empty school hallway where two boys are playing something on a hand held video game system. In the background there is a rather evident Coca-cola vending machine exemplifying the logo, Coke seems to be everywhere Canada is successful.

We then move to a school gym where dozens of public school aged children are watching a single small TV. We are now led to believe this is 1972 by the score on the gym’s chalk board. The score reads: Canada 5, USSR 5. A probable allusion to one of the most famous and pride based of Canadian hockey series, the final game of the 1972 Canada USSR Summit series, in which the score was 5-5 before a last second goal by Canada. The children rise and cheer, they are mimicked by a shot of a group of adults in the stands of a hockey game waving Canadian flags and cheering. We are quickly switched to see the inside of a bar, albeit one sponsored solely by Coca-cola, as all the signs and products visible bear the Coca-Cola moniker, where two men play table hockey. One man shoots and scores, presumably for Canada.

There is then black and white footage of a goal by a female hockey player with a loud announcer-like cheer of “she shoots, she scores.” (Henderson)  The only time we hear this variation of the phrase. This is possibly put in to quell feminist rights protests over what could be a sexist advertisement. Next we see a group of five men cheering in a living room, all conspicuously drinking coke rather than beer as they watch the hockey game. The very small, presumably seventies, TV shows what looks to be a vintage broadcast of the aforementioned USSR game. The commercial then shows a man cheering out the window of a cab, and then a young girl cheering in what seems to resemble a home video. This is followed by another shot of a hockey arena, where Coca-Cola is plastered quite conspicuously on the only audience panel in view. There are then several shots of people cheering “he shoots he scores” (Henderson) in cars, both alone and with friends while listening on the radio. Then a shot of a teen scoring a goal on a net in a melted outdoor rink, probably for continuity as the 1973 game took place in September, the NHL offseason.  The “he scores” (Henderson)  is carried along through the shot to the shot of the children in the gym cheering and back to the shot of the original coke-can hockey boy from the beginning.

Then we see the “Home” plate on the scoreboard with the number changing from 3 to 4. Possibly indicating Canada’s only win at home in the series which ended with Canada with 4 points. Then we see the crowd again, then quickly to the table hockey player cheering, and quickly to a zoomed version of the second crowd shot seen earlier. The excitement of the commercial is building. The music then ramps up as we see an empty professional ice rink with a Canadian flag over one corner, presumably one for the Olympics. The commercial goes to a quick movement from centre ice to the opposing net while the words “Let’s make sure everyone knows whose game they’re playing” are flown through the camera. The shot is montage with shots of crowds, and what looks to be several members of the Canadian women’s hockey team holding up a finger in indication of Canada being number one. Immediately after we see the text on screen and our camera flys into the net, we see the coca-cola logo on the TVs over the rink, displayed just under banner ads of the Coca-cola logo.

            This ad is one based around selling coke through Canada’s love of hockey. The music is powerful and emotional, causing its viewers to become more involved and excited with the message of hockey glory. The message is: Canada is on its way to Hockey glory, so show your support for our hockey teams just like Coke with its sponsorship. However, along with this is an underlying message. Aside from the obvious product placement throughout the commercial there is a clear association one is meant to draw. At the end the line states, “Let’s show them whose game they’re playing” after which the shot immediately shows a nearly full frame shot of Coca-cola logos. The ad seems to be insinuating that this is in fact Coca-Cola’s game.

            Perhaps this idea that it is actually Coca-Cola’s game and not ours is not so strange a concept. For, they are the ones that are really benefiting. Sure the audience gets to watch this nationalistic display of athletic glory, but they are also exposed to a consistent bombardment of commercialisation. Coca-cola gets to be the real winner as they gain sales by painting themselves as an integral part of team Canada’s victory and as very proud Canadians. Although, while broadcasting such messages to Canada the company is still releasing ads to their core demographics in America, as they are an American corporation. As much as they place themselves alongside the pride and cheering of proud Canadians amidst hockey glory, Coca-cola is a company that is not Canadian and will make no mention of hockey in the years until the next winter Olympics.

            This is a profit driven effort to sway Canadians into associating Hockey victory and national pride with Coca-Cola. This is unethical quite simply because they are exploiting our weaknesses of pride and vanity. They are appealing to our sense of emotion through nostalgia. Canadians want to relive the hockey glory of years past, a time when the country stood still and everyone apparently drank exclusively Coca-cola. There is also envy being appealed to as we want to be part of those cheering fans. We want to shout “he shoots, he scores” out the windows of a moving vehicle at passersby. Though the chant is he shoots because the men’s is what is really being talked about. Not only because that was the USSR rivalry series, but because our Women’s hockey team is too good to be on the edge of our seat cheering for. Coca-cola knows this though were careful not to upset any specific group. The majority of hockey players are women, though none shown in professional games. Additionally there are a variety of minorities shown to illustrate multiculturalism and avoid backlash from consumers not represented.

            The ad’s closing text seems to be a call to action for the audience. Let’s show them, as if the audience has any way of contributing to Canada’s chances of winning the game. The only way they can contribute is by watching TV and, obviously, by supporting the supporters by drinking Coca-cola.

            Though what is probably the most interesting aspect of this ad is when it was aired. All of Canada knows this as being a Vancouver 2010 commercial. However, a varied, though quite similar ad also aimed at boosting pride in Canada’s hockey chances appeared in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. The new ad used many of the same shots with changes to all the Coca-Cola logos, and a new ending text. The old text, read “If we time it right they’ll be able to hear us in Salt Lake.” This ad is not noticeably available on youtube, and thus has disappeared from public memory. Coca-cola is therefore able to make a new commercial that hinges on the same nationalistic values with the added bonus of home ice.

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Video, with comparison to Salt Lake variation at the end:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aki40A6KzQg (Maclarenmccann)

Works Cited

Henderson, Pete. "He Shoots He Scores." Online video clip. 13 Jan. 2010. YouTube. 02 April,      2010.

Maclarenmccann. “He Shoots! He Scores! Case Study: Edge Revises a Coke Classic” Online                    Video Clip. 15 Mar. 2010. Youtube. 04 April, 2010.