How we could have made our 2022 bid video a winner

Obviously there was more to winning the 2022 World Cup bid than the bid video, but Australia surely didn’t leave a good final impression with their presentation and were rightly criticised for it. Here are some of my suggestions on how Australia could improve the final presentation.

1. More Australianisms
Okay, so they got the jumping kangaroo and Uluru but what about other classic Australian icons? We should also have seen other classic Australianisms such as “shrimp on the barbie”. As shown by this ad   “We love football, meat pies, kangaroo and Holden car” and this is the direction the bid video should be focusing on (of course referring to Association Football instead of AFL).

How can we not show classic Australian legends such as Don Bradman and Phar Lap? They certainly should have shown those two during the montage about how we Australians love sports.
What about classic Australian sayings such as “fair suck of the sav”, how we are a “lucky country”, and that we will put in the “hard yakka” to make this World Cup well organised and promise that we will display our “Aussie spirit” if it comes down under?
We also should have had the song “A Land Down Under” playing in the background throughout the bid video.

2. Replace Skippy with a Crocodile
Although we should definitely have a kangaroo throughout the montage, I felt a better character to steal the World Cup would be a crocodile.
Why you ask? Well we have Paul Hogan chasing the thief, haven’t we?
Instead of having Paul Hogan disguised with a helmet, he should have dressed in his traditional Crocodile Dundee outfit “hunting” down the crocodile who stole the World Cup. Imagine the hilarity of having Crocodile Dundee hunting the crocodile across the Australian outback.
At the end we can have Paul Hogan finishing the cartoon crocodile off like we see in the movies. After all, a bit of action never hurts any movie.

3. Sex sells

According to undercover reporter’s footage of former FIFA secretary-general Michel Zen-Ruffinen, he claimed that some Executive committee members can be bought off with money and woman with him quoted of saying “X is nice, he's a nice guy, but X is money.”, “He's the guy you can have with the ladies and not with money."

It’s quite obvious that Australia couldn’t compete with Qatar with money so therefore Australia has to target the FIFA Executive Committee members who are influence by woman and not money to stand a chance of winning the bid

So in the bid video we should demonstrate to the world that us Aussie have the hottest ladies in the world and having woman in bikini playing Football on the beach.

Julia Gillard should announce in her cameo with a promise that the oldest occupation in the world – prostitution – would be legal in Australia in all states by 2022.

Also mention that we were previous successful host of Miss Nude Universe Pageant. Instead of sending Executive Committee members with bottle of wine, we should have used have used some of the $43 million tax payers funded money in hiring “escort services”.

4. Make better use of Elle McPherson
Related to point three, it was obvious that Elle McPherson was there was to add a bit of sexiness and glamour to the proceeding. So they should have just show select footage of her “acting” in the movie “Sirens”. That would sure get the attention of the quite elderly Executive committee members.

5. Make sure everyone knows how great Frank Lowy is
There was a segment where Frank Lowy tells his rag to riches story and where Elle McPherson keeps on telling the audience how great Frank Lowy is and how he is a hero and how much he has done for the game.
Well during that speech we should have a halo appearing above Frank’s head and have him entering the stage under a bright white light just to emphasise her point.
Hell, he would certainly do a better job than Morgan Freeman at playing god.

6. We don’t like the English as well
It’s quite obvious that the English aren’t particularly well liked throughout FIFA. We should have used that to our advantage to show them that the English aren’t particularly well liked throughout Australia as well. You can’t show Australian culture without us cursing the “whingeing pom”.
We should have Craig Foster telling us his history of Australian Football where the English mafia has held back the game with their archaic style of football and that’s why Australia is a third world Football nation.
It was only the influence of ethnic clubs from continental Europe and us hiring foreign coaches (such as Rale Rasic and Guus Hiddink), as well as SBS influencing the population by promoting “joga bonito” which was played by South Americans, and our entrance in Asia that made Australia competitive in Football.
Craig should tell the world that it was our abandonment of Anglo culture that made us qualify for three World Cups. We blame England for why we aren’t superpowers of the game.
This will surely get us onside with the other 21 Executive Committee members.

7. Show us the legacy of the World Cup in Australia
We have to show the world what the World Cup would achieve in Australia. Therefore there should be footage of AFL and Cricket matches being played in front of full crowds in even larger stadiums then what they currently have.

8. Johnny Warren’s legacy
It was a disgrace that our greatest Football hero wasn’t mention in the bid video. Therefore at the end of the video presentation there should show Australia winning the World Cup at home, holding the World cup trophy with Johnny Warren face appearing from the sky watching down on us saying, “I Told You So”.

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Epilogue
I know that we didn’t lost the bid due to the video but at least if we got the bid video right we would have been eliminated with our dignity still intact.

I honesty think the bid video was a disaster and made us a laughing stock. It's like Australia was stuck with 80's Australian cliche and the video had very little to do with Football. There was also overly gratuitous used of celebrities that had no connection with Football. When the motorcycle driver caught up with "Skippy" and started to take off his helmut, I actually thought it was going to be Cahill or another Australian Footballer who will return the World Cup back to FIFA and I was gobsmacked when it turned out to be Paul Hogan and comfirmed that this video was almost embarrass in showing any of the members of the Socceroos. It made us look like a footballing backwater nations. The whole presentation was so bad that it was more a parody of Australia rather then advertising this country to host the World Cup.

Frank Lowy commented that the people at FIFA thought it was funny but I have a feeling that they were laughing at us rather then with us.

One of the thing overlook in the common criticism of the video presentations was the narcicism displayed by Frank Lowy. I think Lowy is a hero of Australian football and it’s true that he did so much for the game in Australia. However this wasn’t the moment to be showing the world that as the bid is not about Frank Lowy but Australia as a football nation. Having Elle Mcpherson started going off about how much of a hero Frank Lowy was just astoundingly bad and it seems like it was presenting to the world that the World Cup bid was a platform to glorify Frank Lowy rather then for the benefit of Australian Football.

Also on The Roar (edited) http://www.theroar.com.au/2010/12/15/how-2022-bid-presentation-could-have-looked/