Dirty TackleBorussia Dortmund charm London with humor and love campaign
With two German clubs in the Champions League final, their London hosts are probably a bit more apathetic about the event than they would otherwise be. So to combat that lack of enthusiasm and win over the locals, Borussia Dortmund have organized a rather impressive friendship campaign in the lead-up to the match against more well known Bayern Munich.
The ad above is just one of many parts of their "From Dortmund with Love" campaign in London, urging citizens to enjoy the match while also positioning BVB as the underdog fairytale club that neutrals should get behind. But just how much campaigning are they doing in the city?
From the London Evening Standard:
A black and yellow double-decker bus will tour central London with an onboard team handing out gifts on both tomorrow and Saturday.
The bus will stop off at a number of destinations to celebrate the final with fans.
There will also be men in yellow and black busbies standing guard over some of London's iconic tourist attractions while in various locations such as Tower Bridge, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, there will be life-size cardboard cut-outs of star players including Robert Lewandowski and Marco Reus to showcase the club's love of football.
Here's a map (it's a PDF file) that shows all the landmarks they have covered with their scarves on statues, hot air balloon rides, BVB busbies, touring yellowing bus and player cut-outs. They also have moving signs driving through the city with pandering slogans like "thanks a million for inventing the game we love" and Beatles imagery.
It's a clever way to build grassroots support abroad that should give them a bit of lasting goodwill beyond Saturday's game. Bayern, meanwhile, will just continue to buy all the players that Dortmund charm people into supporting. There's more than one way to skin a cat.
