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Remember When: Abstain for the Game was the century’s most bizarre ad campaign

Remember When: Abstain for the Game was the century’s most bizarre ad campaign

We look back on the time All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick got in a hand-shaped dodgem to tell the country to refrain from rooting.

The Real Pod

October 9, 202319m 39s

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Show Notes

Ahead of the incredibly tense 2011 Rugby World Cup, Abstain for the Game was a Telecom (now Spark) ad campagin using former All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick, in a tuxedo, driving a pink dodgem, asking a tightly wound nation to keep it in their pants. It was an extremely odd ad, and created a furious response from a humourless public. Within days it was withdrawn with heavy apologies. But the ad has aged well, and as The Real Pod remembers when, they also ask – did we get this one wrong?

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