In this campaign spot directed by Bacon’s Martin Werner for Norwegian agency TRY, state-owned sports betting/lotteries company Norsk Tipping turns sports’ near-misses, wrong turns and off-key moments into a celebration of the mediocre.
The success of Norsk Tipping points back to the country’s sport, culture and volunteer community. The brand film spotlights the everyday players on the pitch, the dance floor and the trail.
The “For The Mediocre” film opens in reverence, using the visual grammar of sport, shot closely and building anticipation for something great about to happen. Then it doesn’t. The striker scuffs the shot. The basketball rims out. The cyclist meets the trail face-first. The talent here is being a near-miss, out-of-rhythm star. But every one of those small defeats resolves the same way: a community waiting with open arms to embrace the fall and laugh about it. As the narration puts it, this is “a tribute to all those who never become the very best, but who we need the most”.
Werner shoots the misses with exactly the care usually reserved for the winning goal: same light, same slow motion, same reverence, so the bathos never tips into mockery, and the warmth lands naturally. The film closes on the line that has carried Norsk Tipping for years: “For all of us, to all of us. Give the dream a chance.”
