Love of The Game… and Pasta

Federer Partners with Barilla To Make Young Athlete’s Dream Come True

20 grand slams and 103 ATP singles titles. Easily one of the GOATs of the game, Roger Federer is still perfecting a sportsman's life. Recently, Federer has shown his talent off the court with his partnership and collaboration with Barilla pasta, starring in ads that hit right in the heart, make you laugh, and most importantly for Barilla, make your mouth water.

Now for a little backstory for his first ad. Federer was asked by a young tennis player at a press conference to keep playing for 8-9 years so he could play against him when he grows up. Barilla took fantastic advantage of this blast from the past. As this young player, Zizou, is in Zurich to train, he eats at a local restaurant, with Federer behind the scenes watching on as fans cheer Zizou’s name, the waiter calls him by name, and the chef asks for a selfie while wearing a shirt printed with Zizou’s face. The focus is all on Zizou as he walks onto the court to face his training opponent: Roger Federer.

Ending the game with the fans, finally getting to play against his idol, the ad ends simply with Barilla’s logo and the headline: A Sign of Love.

The ad encompasses what sport is all about: fun, emotion, excitement, passion, and so much more, but all while promoting their own product, pasta. How do they do it?

Barilla has done brilliantly with this ad. Making this young tennis player’s dream come true to play against an all-time great in the sport and his idol whom he met so many years ago. But by setting the scene at a restaurant with a beautifully made Barilla pasta dish in the background, the audience subconsciously creates the connection of love, passion, humour, and emotion of sport with their iconic and famous pasta.

You wouldn’t think this was a commercial about pasta, and that’s what Barilla intended. By taking the attention away from the pasta and focusing on more emotional and humourous themes, you actually pay attention to the video (rather than skipping the video like most of us do…come on, we all do it), and with that associate Barilla with the emotions and laughter throughout the ad.

Now, it isn’t enough just to use Federer in this one ad, no. It was so nice, they had to do it twice. In another Barilla ad, Federer faces off 1v1 against a professional chef, cooking the same pasta dish we see in the Zizou ad. Showing close-ups of the process of cooking the perfect pasta dish (using Barilla pasta of course), the two professionals are the masters of their roles, one a tennis legend and the other a professional chef, associating their legacy with the legacy of Barilla.

In sports marketing, it’s easy to use athletes to promote sports products as it's what they use on a daily basis. You wouldn’t typically expect a tennis legend to promote a pasta brand, but the means by which these ads are executed makes the delivery and reception near flawless.

August 12, 2022 - Issue 51 of The Sport Marketeer