#Galaxy11. Yeah, we know, there's 13, but when Landon Donovan arrives who could turn him away?


Korean electronics giant Samsung has gone way beyond the ordinary with its ludicrously scaled battle to save the planet to promote its newest smartphone the Galaxy S5 - racking up half a million views in only a day. There’s a certain charm to the premise, plus its amazingly tenuous attempts to show the S5's key features and the 4 minute spot, ‘The Training’, certainly isn’t short on entertainment value. Also  it marks possibly the only time we’ll see Messi and Ronaldo working together, despite a relatively contemptuous glance afterwards.



Under its sci-fi skin it offers some not unlikely world cup scenarios – an English player (Rooney) fails to score a penalty, Casillas gets to play a cup game and Victor Moses appears, inexplicably, but with little impact- in fact the ball actively gets up and walks away from him. More unlikely though is the six armed robot goalkeeper and hopefully the prospect of alien invasion.


If you’re going for the full experience check out to the precursor trailer, setting the scene for ‘The Training’ – aptly named ‘The Beginning’, or even the comprehensive microsite. Personally, despite not having waited all my life for a weird cocktail of Tron, District 9, Portal and football, I’m interested to see where Samsung takes the campaign next. The blockbuster approach from agency, RGA, means it certainly won’t be lost amongst shallow, unadventurous World Cup cash-in ads.