First came the highly-anticipated royal wedding of Wills and Kate in the UK. The world watched as swathes of Union Jacks flooded their screens and sales of questionable royal memorabilia soared. If that wasn’t enough to quench your royal thirst, the very next day saw the Netherlands celebrate Queen’s Day. The Dutch really know how to push the boat out (pun most definitely intended) as Amsterdam is bathed in a sea of orange.
Then it was the turn of the Vatican City with the beatification of Pope John Paul II. The Poles flocked in their droves to see ‘their’ pope move one step closer to sainthood. And on that very same day, as the world woke to the news that bin Laden had met his demise, Americans flooded Times Square and Pennsylvania Avenue to share in the celebratory and reflective mood of the nation. Their national pride was quite literally written all over their faces.
Being based in Amsterdam, we know how much advertisers and their agencies have seized the opportunity to align brands with the mood of the nation. In Holland you can scarcely go out of your front door or switch on your TV without being confronted with ads for brands wanting to associate themselves with traditional Dutch values and popular emotion. For a couple of weeks, brands such as Heineken and Albert Heijn ditch their usual colours in favour of the more patriotic orange. Judging by what we’ve seen from the UK in recent weeks, British brands have experienced a similar fate.
Whilst we’re pretty sure that no brand will attempt to overtly celebrate the death of a global terrorist, it will be interesting to see the campaigns coming out of the US in the coming weeks. Will we see brands riding the crest of the patriotic wave and going down the red, white and blue route? Watch this space.
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