Did Ronaldo damage Coke’s brand? It depends where you were standing

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2021-06-29 00:30:03

Our trusty columnist has been away for the past 10 weeks teaching the Mini MBA in Marketing and Mini MBA in Brand Management to 3,000 marketers across more than 40 countries. With class over and fresh from winning the PPA Columnist of the Year award, he returns with his own take on the Ronaldo Coca-Cola incident.

My favourite movie of all time is Bullitt. Steve McQueen wears a turtleneck, says very little and drives the shit out of a green Mustang while making a major impression on a ridiculously hot Jacqueline Bisset. It’s a fantastic film. Great to watch solo or with friends. Perfect when you are shit-faced. Or on a plane. Or both. And it’s a lovely film to watch with the little ones too. Possibly.

So when someone once asked me about my favourite film across a table at a very fancy dinner party in West London I did not hesitate. “Rashomon,” I said. “Got to be Rashomon.” I was not going to let on to these very fine people that I was into dumb plots with even dumber car chases, so I opted for the most arcane, intellectual movie I could think of.

And it does not get much more arcane or intellectual than Akira Kurosawa’s iconic, black-and-white classic from 1950. The plot describes the murder of a local samurai from the perspective of his wife, a bandit, a woodcutter and – through a medium – the dead warrior himself. I can’t remember how it ends because I fell asleep two-thirds of the way through. The total absence of turtlenecks, Mustangs and Jacqueline Bisset really made it hard work on the back nine. But useful at dinner parties nonetheless.