Spain v. France last night was a really good game, but there have been a few stinkers at Euro 2024.

The other night I was watching Portugal and France play out a very tedious 0-0 draw (yes, England have also been quite tough to watch) and the on-field action was so poor I started focusing on the pitchside ads.

In particular, trying to work out what Hisense Group was trying to say with:

“Never settle for No.2 globally”

I think the message is supposed to be:

“We’re No.2 in the World, but we’re aiming to be No.1” (a bit like the great old AVIS “We try harder” campaign).

These ad boards are dynamic in that brands can show different messages to fans in different countries, so clearly this is a translation from the Chinese original, which I’m sure works just fine for that audience.

Unfortunately to the English speaker, the message you take away could be:

“We’re the No.2 globally but don’t settle for that! Go and buy a TV from the No.1 brand.”

Even if you that’s not the message you walk away with, it’s pretty confusing and at best a missed chance for Hisense to give people more of a sense of what the company is.

I’m constantly amazed at how often sponsors of global events seem to put so little thought into the basics of activating the thing they’ve spent so much money on, and coming up with a message that might actually resonate with fans.