 |
Sorokin (r) Celebrates With Igor Shuvalov
After FIFA Awards '18 World Cup To Russia |
L.A.-based ad agency Adore Creative has helped Russia “score several big victories on the world stage: in the last three years it has won the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics, the 2013 World University Games, and most recently the 2018 World Cup soccer tournament,” according to Andrew Kramer of the N.Y. TIMES. Adore President & Chief Creative Dir Rupert Wainwright, who was hired in ’07 by Russian officials, said the “big issue with Russia is, you have to normalize it.” Wainwright is dealing with a government that “demands absolute control and veto power.” He “described one senior official spending several hours poring over the story boards for the Olympic film, and making subtle changes.” The official “ruled out a scene showing an Orthodox church, saying it put too much emphasis on Christianity, and preferred instead to play up Russia’s multiethnic, multireligious character.” Adore Creative is “one of a half-dozen or so Western advertising agencies working closely with the inner circle of Russia’s government.” Russia “uses the Ketchum agency for general issues and Weber Shandwick for sports marketing,” and the country “hires Adore to make films.” Russia World Cup Bid Committee CEO Alexei Sorokin said, “We needed to influence a foreign audience, so we needed somebody to see Russia with a foreigner’s eyes.” Adore was “paid $2.7 million for the World Cup project.” After the “successful Olympic bid, Adore Creative shot films for the University Games and the World Cup.” In the World Cup video, “Sasha’s Big Day,” a boy “dribbles a soccer ball with cosmonauts, nomads and ballerinas, but also through prosaic settings like shopping malls and on a school bus.” Wainwright said that film was intended to show that Russia was “like the West, only more beautiful in many ways” (N.Y. TIMES, 12/29).
