How was Euro 2024 for you? Exciting, disappointing, fun, all right, intriguing tactically, a waste of environmental resources? There is a whole world of valid responses to that rather banal question. Though for those football fans you see in adverts, for whom the Euros was a busy time, what with ads for TVs, betting, specs, hybrid vehicles, Scottish fizzy drinks, sportswear, holidays, razors and – with Sir Geoff Hurst leading the charge in the no-nonsense style that made his name – beer, any answers would be less expansive.
Television, radio, internet, YouTube and even dear old magazine and newspaper adverts have been dotted with depictions of the football fan. You will recognise the type. Usually male, though advertising researchers have now recognised football attracts a significant female audience. Usually white, too, though again, some semblance of diversity has been addressed. Beyond embracing such modernity, they will almost certainly be wearing a replica shirt and their emotions remain a binary equation.
