In Portland, soccer fans are good looking, in an indie rock lumberjack kind of way. That’s one thing I get from the Portland Timbers’ new out-of-home advertising campaign, currently running on several of the city’s structures, east and west of the Willamette River.
The campaign from Jelly Helm Studio and Official Mfg. Co. is “the biggest campaign we’ve done yet,” Timbers owner Merritt Paulson said. “It’s about who we are.”
The people in the ads are locals and are die-hard soccer fans. Paulson said authenticity – including that of the axes and saws, which, in some cases were borrowed from display cases that tell the story of Oregon’s logging heritage – is central to the campaign.
Next Thursday, Friday and Saturday Timbers fans can show up at the Timbers store in downtown Portland and get their own picture taken. Personalization, for the win!
In an earlier move, the Timbers–who have been competing in the United Soccer Leagues for nearly a decade, but join MLS this season–ran an outdoor board a few blocks away from Seattle’s Qwest Field, home of the rival Sounders. The ad claimed that Portland, not Seattle, is “Soccer City.”
To see more ads in the campaign, visit this photoset on Flickr.
The Timbers will play host to the Chicago Fire in their MLS home opener on Thursday, April 14.
