Have ‘inspirational’ sports ads like Adidas’ new FanTheFire run their course?

Would-be inspirational ads featuring sportsmen and women are becoming a genre of their own: notable recent examples include Droga5’s ‘Phelps’ for Under Armour and Wieden+Kennedy ‘Da Da Ding,” featuring what seems to be most of the women in India for Nike.

We’re back off to the sub-continent again in Adidas’ ‘#FanTheFire’ from Cheil featuring a young skater who aspires to make the Winter Olympics in 2018. Ice skating in cricket mad India is a bit like the celebrated Jamaican bobsleigh team in Cool Runnings.

Voiceover by his mum.

But that’s partly the problem, there’s rather too much mum. And training along those dimly-lit mean streets has become something of a cliché.

MAA creative scale: 6.