The New South Wales Waratahs are going to graphic ends in promoting their Super 12 rugby season using the blood, sweat and tears of their players.
The Waratahs, the chronic under-achievers of Australian rugby, have devised a promotion campaign with their advertising agency through a series of paintings created by 2002 Archibald Prize-winning artist Adam Cullen.
Cullen used players’ actual blood, sweat and tears to create artistic interpretations of five Waratah players, the New South Wales Rugby Union said at the season launch in Sydney on Monday.
”It’s a pretty bold campaign but one that I support because of the message it sends,” Waratahs skipper Chris Whitaker said at the media launch. ”Its definitely different but blood, sweat and tears really sums up what being a Waratah means.”
Advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney said it wanted to express a bold commitment to make the promotion campaign eye-catching and successful.
”We wanted the ads to explode off the page,” said the agency’s art director, Peter Buckley. ”So, we approached Australian contemporary artist Adam Cullen to paint portraits of Waratah players using their bodily fluids.”
The paintings are to be auctioned off, with the proceeds going to charity, and are part of the Waratahs’ advertising and marketing activity for 2005 under the slogan ”Playing hard since 1874”.
”We wanted to get this across to New South Wales’ rugby-loving public, to get some idea of the effort that the guys are putting in to succeed. The campaign is about this effort, the blood, sweat and tears metaphorically and literally,” said Paul Mendham, the senior account director at Saatchi. — Sapa-AFP