When even Beckham failed to bend it

Sometimes, it's difficult to make out between the real and the imaginary. Between life and art. Art is supposed to imitate life. Not always.

When Pepsi was shooting its commercial with a whole host of football stars, including England captain David Beckham, on surfboards recently, little did the Cola major realise that a beautiful sun'n'sand campaign would face problems. From unexpected quarters.

The devastating earthquake in South East Asia and the ensuing Tsunami suddenly made surf-based themes highly inappropriate.

So much so, Pepsi postponed the surfing advert, which was due to appear on TV around the world, including Asia.

A spokesperson for PepsiCo commented: “In light of the recent tragedy in Asia, we at PepsiCo International have taken the decision to put our 2005 surf-themed football campaign on hold for the foreseeable future.”

It's not clear as to who all shared the ball (and the surf boards) with Beckham at the sun-soaked beach. Hopefully, Italian football superstar Paolo Maldini wasn't there.

Maldini, who has featured in Pepsi commercials in the past, was vacationing in the Maldives, when the Tsunami struck. The footballer, along with colleagues Gianluca Zambrotta, Alessandro Nesta and Cristian Brocchi, narrowly escaped death.

God forbid, if Maldini had met with a serious accident after being featured in the advert, Pepsi would have been forced to kill the commercial, and not morely postponing it.

Across the Atlantic, Welsh brewers SA Brain was not so lucky.

The company was all set to roll out a campaign featuring an English player – about to take a penalty shot during the Six Nations clash with Wales – hindered by the fact his leg is in plaster.

The advert extolling the 'power of positive thinking' had to be pulled out before its launch after events depicted on posters became uncannily true.

Even Nostradamus would have been pleased with the accuracy of the creatives.

Over the weekend when the advert was scheduled to be released, English specialist penalty-shooter Jonny Wilkinson suffered a partial medial ligament tear which ruled him out of the Wales match on February 5.

A SA Brain spokesperson commented, “In light of Wilkinson's injuries over the weekend, the company feels that it would be inappropriate to run the adverts.” The adverts were subsequently withdrawn from all the billboards.

© 2005 agencyfaqs!