After 30 years NRL relaunches Tina Turner ‘Simply The Best’ campaign with new commercial via The Monkeys for the upcoming season
On the 30th anniversary of the most iconic rugby league ad campaign in history, the NRL, via The Monkeys, has relaunched an updated version of Tina Turner’s ‘Simply The Best’ for the upcoming season.
Turner was the face of rugby league in the late 80s and early 90s, with her hit song becoming synonymous with rugby league via ad campaigns created by Hertz Walpole, Sydney.
Now the NRL has decided it was time to bring the campaign back and update it with today’s stars, as well as a nod to some iconic moments from the past three decades.
The new spot starts with a young Cameron Smith sitting in his lounge room in 1990 watching the original ad before rolling through some of the great moments in Grand Finals history.
The commercial also highlights some of today’s biggest stars including Tyson Frizell, the Trbojevic brothers and Latrell Mitchell.
Creative Agency: The Monkeys, Sydney
Executive Creative Director: Vince Lagana
Creative Directors: Dan Fryer & Stuart Alexander
Writer: Dan Fryer, Stuart Alexander & Michael Dawson
Producer: Wendy Gillies
Group Account Director: Ciaran Miller-Stubbs
Account Director: Anna Willis
Senior Account Manager: Ruth Peck
Senior Planner: Charlotte Marshall
Production Company: Good Oil Films
Director: Stuart McIntyre
Producers: Chana McLallen & Sam Long
Casting: Natalie Jane Harvie @ Citizen Jane
Music/Audio: Tim Bridge – Sonar Music
Music Supervisor: Anton Trailer – Trailer Media
Editor: Simon Price & Phoebe Taylor @ Arc Edit
Flame Artist: Eugene Richards @ Arc Edit
Grade: Alter Ego, Toronto
Client: National Rugby League
Head of Marketing and Brand: Peter Jarmain
71 Comments
I really wanted to like it. Good editing but damn this is cringe. So much cringe.
Having Tina Turner singing is what made the first edition so special and gave it a tonne of energy.
Quality. Well done monkeys.
This is really good, thee iconic song of the game updated nicely
Simply the best bit of NRL advertising from the last few years.
I don’t even like the game but this got me feeling fuzzy inside. Goosebumps stuff.
Well done Monkeys.
Huge AFL fan here who’s never followed NRL.
Even I got a bit giddy.
Good stuff.
LOVE IT!!!! Nice job
Unwatchable.
Nothing new here, same old montage of games to a rock track. There’s a bit of an idea with some of the players as kids, but that doesn’t sustain the spot. Foxtel and 9 promote the game just as well, if not better.
This was brilliant. Well done to everyone involved.
I never saw the original, but even without that added angle of nostalgia I really like this. I am not a big NRL fan but even so, this has gotten me excited for the start of the season, so job done. Nice work all involved.
Being an NRL tragic I knew using this song was coming.
Being honest I felt disappointed and let down by this version, especially when the girl started singing. (why?)
I agree Channel 9 and Foxtel do better at promoting the game.
Finally the NRL do something I can feel proud of. For too long most fans are made to feel ashamed for following the game.
This is just what the code needed.
So many great moments.
I got tingles watching it.
Go the Dragons!
It’s epic!
Nostalgic and future facing.
… good to see it in action.
I’ve never heard of the NRL or Australia but this made me feel so many emotional things in my heart balls.
Updating a much-loved campaign is not an easy task. This was brilliantly handled. Hits all the right chords without becoming a cheese-fest.
Really? I felt like it was a virtue signalling mess. Last years promo was much much better.
There was a promo last year?
Love it. Finally something good for the NRL.
Really good editing job. Managed to nail so many seminal moments for so many clubs. The girl singing was like popping a balloon. Intended to be an emotional moment but fell flat. Should have edited her out. And the sax player? But nice job.
Love the NRL, and love this. Nice work all round. Vince, can you make a version with only Parra for me!
#goraiders
C’arn the Cats!
Who cares what ad people think- read up on the fan response. It’s not good.
Being NRL fan, I have a lot of questions and complaints, but that’s for another time and place.
As for the work, no complaints here, The Monkeys have done a great job and hats off to everyone involved.
A while back the FFA were simply the best and they did it better than everyone. They also did it in 60 seconds.
https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/34583475/where-heroes-are-made/ffa
and it worked wonders for them didn’t it?
@ the Other Code,
please don’t get me started on the FFA. You say they did it better? When? The ad you reference did sweet FA (sorry) for them. They are in crisis and have been for years. Football will always be my first love but the FFA are bloody hopeless. The NRL shits on them when it comes to marketing the game.
I wish the A-League had an ad like this latest NRL ad. For god sake it needs it.
…it would be David Brent from The Office (relaunched).
Getting people to sing ‘simply the best’ again is a massive win for the NRL. Kudos to client and agency alike. Residual memory structures… don’t let ’em die.
If NRL are smart… if… they’ll return to “Simply the best” for years to come.
Great job! I think Dick Marks would be proud but that girl singing was woeful.
@Dan
Easy on mate. Worth it for the Trell shot alone.
I honestly can’t remember a single NRL campaign since the Tina Turner ad back in 1990. That was 30 years ago! They’ve all been forgettable. This is brilliant!
Love it and won’t forget it.
I don’t know which is more stuck in the past, the NRL or Australian advertising. Throwback trash.
Another client gone, so who is left at the ailing super agency?
I’d feel cheated if I was their client.
Wow – I don’t know how to feel about this.
Great idea to bring back Tina – she was and always will be Simply the Best.
I think I like it…until I get to that kid singing in the middle. WTF!
The nod to our indigenous players and heritage could not be more overwrought and clumsy if it tried.
Sorry – but no goosebumps for this old footy fan. Nice production though.
I can’t think of another major sports league in the world that would promote their new season by harking back to previous players and old matches, never mind an advert from 1990.
It feels like the NRL are living on past glories and have nothing to talk about today.
@EPL fan – so true. The main issue NRL is facing is in the suburbs of Sydney where more and more kids are now choosing to play AFL. Sure, this campaign may stoke some nostalgia for us oldies (or piss off anyone who doesn’t live in the Woke Utopia of Surry Hills), but does nothing to help stop the bleeding.
Oh look, a retro campaign with virtue signalling tacked on. How ever did they come up with that? So now… and then… and woke… and balls.
I got goosebumps.
We haven’t seen an NRL ad like this since the last Simply the Best ad 30 plus years ago.
Amazing.
Go Newcastle!
This is one of those ads you know will hit the target market right between the eyes.
Parts of the ad industry will be pick holes in it because it isn’t new, isn’t this, isn’t that – but so what.
If I was an NRL fan – I’d be singing along with this from beginning to end.
Pretty awesome execution. As a league fan I found all those nostalgic memories were handled so effectively. Only gripe was the biggest crescendo of the track falls flat when the girl sings. For me it doesn’t achieve the emotion it was going for and would have been better placed somewhere else (not during the highest point of the spot), but overall best NRL campaign in years and years.
Does anyone know what happened to RGA on this account? No Samsung, no Telstra, no NRL, no ECD, … What exactly are they working on
Fucking awful. Advertising needs a populist revolution.
Let’s be honest and upfront, this film is so far off the mark its ‘Simply the Worst’
1. The NRL is all about football so to promote indigenous or any other beliefs is not sport. 2. Why do we promote an NRL mortal who confessed to taking drugs. 3. There are so many mistakes with dates and names on jersey’s.
I guess I’m not alone, 2GB just did a poll and 84% said they don’t like it. I’m all for ‘Simply the best’ but please keep the original song.
Me think all involved tried too hard. Back to the edit room chaps.
Surely offending 2GB’s ageing audience means the game is heading in the right direction?
@ let’s be honest,
Ha, ha 2GB? Need you say more? Let me guess, the aboriginal moment and gay acceptance scene upset a few old timers?
I think the NRL should be applauded for moving on. It’s the old timers and old time reporters who are holding the game back. This is an amazing signal from the NRL.
This makes me proud to love the game.
The mere existence of this ad is admission of defeat by the industry for its inability to better an average ad made years ago. No one under the age of 45 gives a fuck about or has any nostalgia for the original and it will just seem as dated to them as the clunky vignette used here.
Loved this! Nice one guys and thank you for including that Benji flick! Dusting off my Tigers jersey for the new season. Can not wait.
If you’re gonna rehash something, executing it in a way that’s nostalgic, historical and powerful as hell is the way to do it. I hit play expecting to hate it. “Brand redos old brand TVC, except crappier” is how i read the title. I very much enjoyed it. You didn’t take the easy route. It’s clear the crew behind this gave a shit and it shows.
It’s great. From a time when NRL players didn’t abuse women or at least it wasn’t reported.
Agree with the point about the young girl singing – really let the energy down. And random sax player.
I liked it, sentimental for me and a reason to watch my beloved team play again. But I didn’t like it enough to re-support a code who lets offenders rejoin.
No amount of advertising can fix that, they need to make examples of players. Until then, it’s still AFL for me.
Its the standard and skill of the footy that moves the game on. If you think the advertising or better still this ad is changing the game you are living on planet pluto.
The Trbojevic brothers as little boys playing in the back yard, graphic: 1996. Nice idea, except Tom Trbo was only born in 1996. Oops. Souths fan demonstrating at the 2000 rally (to have Souths reinstalled) with SUTTON on the back of his jersey. Except Sutton only joined Souths in 2004. Oh dear. Nobody thought to check these things? Rank errors aside, some nice moments, but ultimately desperately trying to tick every political box, (as do so many other advertisers to be fair).
I figured the youngest kid was about one years old so technically it could be right depending on what month Tom was born. Regardless its kind of close enough.
As for Sutton – well I just read that scene completely differently. I just assumed that was a young teen version of him with his name printed on the back of the jersey. Just like how my parents use to get my surname printed on the back of all my jerseys – soccer, league, basketball. Made me feel like a star.
Don’t think the ad is saying he was playing for them during the march.
No need to try poke holes. This is great.
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different result.
This monkeys trick of using a classic song with a little girl chiming in for emotion, to substitute for a lack of ideas (see nrma ‘throw your arms’ spot) is sure getting old and really boring.
Well it has worked! Everyone is talking about it! When was the last time an NRL ad got people going! Some people are missing the point!
Looking forward to v2 of this! https://www.sportingnews.com/au/league/news/nrl-set-to-make-changes-to-simply-the-best-ad-campaign-amid-backlash/1mwzuslrfr28y1owt3fwp8kldv (if this is actually true)
It was promoted as the 30th anniversary of simply the best…but is now branded as a tawdry political statement appealing to minorities. Shame on you Monkeys and the NRL.
@So removed from its own fan base.
Geez, I think you’ll find beyond the News Limited bash (we all know their motives) and old school traditionalists the ad is appealing and well liked by the people it’s trying to recruit. Let’s not forget the games crowd attendance is suffering. Appealing to old timers is what is constantly holding the game back.
Best summed up here by the Betoota Advocate:
https://www.betootaadvocate.com/sports/nrl-promo-video-under-fire-for-not-being-the-usual-compilation-of-blokes-developing-cte/
Guessing you worked on this. You’re an idiot for upsetting News Limited. That is league heartland in two states, AFL in the rest of the country.
Piss them off and the NRL watchers will switch codes in disgust.
SMH / Guardian / SBS / ABC – not league in the slightest. Know your market.
It looks and sounds like advertising, but something’s missing.
I can see why they got an American director out for the gig!
He’s Canadian.
What’s wrong with this industry? Gave me goosebumps. Nicely crafted. Celebrates all the good things about the code. And featured my Titans. Bring on 2020.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/put-simply-nrl-has-grown-up-and-it-s-for-the-best-we-all-follow-suit-20200304-p546wn.html
Little Australia.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/butchered-terrible-singo-s-barrage-over-nrl-ad-revealed-20200304-p546wk.html
What is it with the Monkeys and their faux ‘inclusion’ crap?
You’ve already turned lamb and beef into the meat no man wants to bring to a barbie, and sales are tanking.