TORONTO—Just two weeks before the opening of the 2015 Pan American games in Toronto, organizers have unveiled a new marketing strategy designed to generate greater interest in the games by re-naming them the “FIFA World Cup.”
Pan Am vice-president Bob O’Douhrty explained the change in a press conference today. “While our past image–that of a competition in which participants from North and South America participate in a variety of summer sports–has served us fine, we have to stay in touch with what interests our audience most. So we’ve decided to update our image to something fans are truly excited about–a prestigious football tournament featuring the best teams from all over the world.”
So far, public reception of the brand shift has been extremely positive.
“Before they started coming out with all these new ads, I honestly wasn’t too interested,’” said Toronto resident Tom Alvares. “But now that I know I’ll get to cheer on the Portugal football team as they face off with Germany and Spain, I’m really looking forward to it!”
While the games will feature the same non-soccer events as planned, the new marketing campaign will cast the Pan Am events in a “more football-oriented spirit.” For instance, the shot-put toss will be referred to as “the handball,” the high-jump will be renamed the “backwards bicycle-kick” and the marathon will be called the “26-mile penalty kick warm-up run.”
“While we know that this rebranding may be somewhat confusing to fans when they tune in and see a variety of sporting events rather than just soccer, we trust that they’ll come around once they see how similar to the World Cup the Pan Am Games really is,” explained O’Douhrty.
At press time, FIFA was too busy right now to deal with this.
