Would you link your brand to a dishonest act?

It was not clear to me the lack of awareness there is about the diving problem until I saw a commercial spot from Abitab, a financial institution in Uruguay, featuring Luis Suárez.

The spot shows an office-employee Suárez depicting his life as a clerk very intelligently intertwined with moments in his life as a football player. There he is being announced as a new employee, with the press taking pictures of him with his new jersey (a clerk uniform, with a tie). There he is being quite competitive with his desk buddy, and so on.

Then the time comes when he dives at the office after being just lightly touched by a co-worker.

via GIPHY

As funny as the scene looks, it makes me think:

• This is a commercial spot from a financial institution.
• One of the top principles any financial institution should live by is honesty.
• Diving is a dishonest act. In case this needs explanation: diving happens when a player fakes an injury trying the deceive the referee in hope of gaining unjust advantage over their opponent. See Wikipedia if you still don’t agree.

It just doesn’t make any sense that a financial institution would willingly link their brand to a dishonest act. They wouldn’t do it with money laundry, they wouldn’t do it with tax evasion, but they do it with diving. Why? Because diving is part of the collective unconscious. Our sport heroes do it, it happens all the time, most of the time it goes unpunished and sometimes it’s even rewarded.

That’s what we are trying to do with #StopDiving, we are raising awareness so that someday diving, as any other dishonest act, is looked down with disapproval. So that all professional players become an example of honesty and integrity to the next generation. Remember, the world’s youth is watching!

Please support this cause by signing our petition to all professional football players. You can also learn more about the cause reading our manifesto.

Disclaimer
I’m not saying Abitab is a dishonest institution, I didn’t know about them before I watched this spot. I’m not saying Luis Suárez is a bad player, undoubtedly he’s one of the top forwards in the world. I even have to praise the company that produced this spot, it’s clearly high quality, engaging and very funny. I’m just pointing out an unexpected association of ideas.