As June 11 fast approaches, I get more and more excited about football, fun, and beers!  I love the World Cup and always have. There’s an energy in the air that is so palpable and a buzz that stays with you for a full thirty days.

With the arrival of the World Cup comes a plethora of brand promotions and initiatives, which are inevitably a fly or a flop.  Just yesterday I saw Nike’s “epic” three minute spot starring Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Didier Drogba.  I must confess that I really don’t enjoy this spot at all. I don’t even know if I can accurately convey the plotline (after having watched it twice, once with sound and once without…).  It goes a little something like this, the football stars line up for key shots in the tournament, miss them, are mocked and made fun of.  Then, in a serious plot twist, it turns out to be some kind of terrible dream. In reality they score! Somewhere in all this mess, Rooney grows an unseemly beard and lives in a trailer, Homer Simpson opens the door to a Portugal stud and Gael Garcia Bernal plays Cristiano Ronaldo.