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Well we are nearly there & I have noticed a cuple of amusing things around the Euro Championships:

Crap SBB advertising " SBB is the European Champion in trains" sort of implying that if the national team don't win, Switzerland can rest on its public transport laurels.

Was in Athleticum yesterday, the usual collection of Hop Schweiz, footballs & shirts froim every nation & a huge rack of England shirts marked up at half price

Regional Bern buses are painted orange & have "Welcome Oranjies" ... brilliant.

Anyone else noted some interesting / amusing Euro crap ?

Well, it's got to be Migros' endless supply of EM foodstuffs. As in: "Is it round?, then let's claim it's football-shaped and sell it as merchandise!"

http://www.m08.ch/de/phase1/angebote/78-apple.html

Still - "if you can't lick'em, join'em!"

On the station platform at Basel SBB there is a massive banner advert saying "Can't wait for the Swiss and the Turks" which I think is rather sweet given the large Turkish population in Basel.

So far, only this thing that I found a while ago. Looks like EF's anti-cuss filter has gotten the better of it.

Another link

It's laugable what a fuss Migros makes about Euro'08 despite not being an official sponsor. I had enough when the "M'08" contest was aired on SF1.

Another discounter on the EM train is Denner with its "Swiss vintage football shirt"... Ha ha!

And then there's the official sticker album. I was tempted to collect but now it costs 1 Fr./5 stickers and there are 534 stickers... that's about 33 per team! Do they include a portrait of the team car driver, too, now? Oh and what if the Swiss collectors figure out that they can save 29% when they buy the stickers in the neighboring countries? No problem, let's introduce a "Swiss edition" with 20 additional pictures of celebrating Swiss players*! So that's 554 stickers for you s*ckers!

Yes, there are a couple lessons in licensing, marketing and localised markets to be learned here (and I haven't even started with fan zones and "public" viewing).


As a member of the auxiliary fire brigade I volunteer two match days in Zurich. We had a presentation of the security concept and I must say I'm very positive about it. One bit I particularly liked is that there most probably will be numbered signs along the Limmat river. If somebody not familiar with the city alerts the rescue forces by phone that there's a person stuck in the river, they can descibe the location with the aid of the signs, and the person hopefully can be pulled out before he gets flushed through the city and lands in the dam.


*If they drop out in the group stage, we can show our offspring how they celebrated with the album.

If the drop out in the group stage, then the stickers will probably be discontinued. That's what the Italians have done with the Panini stickers in the past.

Was amused to see in MMMigros multipacks of pocket tissues with images of cheering footie fans printed on the front -- plus, get this, a face-painting kit of white and red. I see the Swiss are rather realistic about the tears coming.

First aid kit in the somewhat deflated shape of a football with black and white hexagons design. Would fans hurt themselves cheering?!

No , but they might get hurt by other fans , if they cheer for the wrong team . It is just the Swiss being prepared .....

Hopp Schwiiz LED belt, from 2006 though, but I'm sure it'll be a hit for the Euro 2008, yet again!



Custom paint job perhaps.....

The two guys in red look like they're in a love scene.

obviously a shortage of under age groupies in Thun is having a knock on effect.

Football toilet paper spotted. Normal white stuff with black balls printed on it. I wonder how long it took to come up with that design

And it seems the Mars bar has been rebranded Hopp. Initially I thought this was the new name (ala Snickers replacing Marathon) but then I saw the word - what does it mean by the way? on the Heinz tomato ketchup bottle offering Swiss football shirts with labels.

"Hopp" means "Go!" - as in: "Go on, Switzerland" or "Come on, Switzerland" etc.

Every morning at the French/Swiss border, I pass a welcoming, bearded swiss vineyard owner in a French team shirt (I think). The rest of the poster has (more or less) "We are pleased to welcome the french team for Euro 2008", in french.

How sweet, so they don't hate us really .

So you haven't noticed the backside yet, which reads: "A bientôt! We're sorry that the french team didn't make it past the group stage"?

There were football pentagons printed on the plastic wrapping of the Iceberg salad I've bought in Migros. I should've kicked it.

What's next, cat grass with sideline paint?

Oi! Where'd ya see dat then?

What I find very interesting is that lot of immigrants are flying two sets of flags on their cars. Swiss flag and flag of their home country. Is that kind of middle finger to SVP types?

No, it's just that Switzerland has a lot of citizens of foreign origin.
These people still identify with that origin. I wouldn't give the SVP that much credit.