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Why Volleyball is Like Advertising (Well, Sort of)

02/08/2018
Advertising Agency
Paris, France
433
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ROSAPARK co-founder and CCO Gilles Fichteberg draws some surprisingly poignant parallels between his two biggest passions
Volleyball, a sport I play every week on a championship level and that I’ve loved for over 30 years, is the only collective sport where there’s no physical contact with the opposing team. What does it have in common with advertising, you might say? I’ll tell you: nothing… Unless... sometimes that yearning to wallop your opponent or a marketing director without being able to do so yields the same sort of frustration. In all seriousness though, the fact that it’s a collective sport par excellence does have a link with the world of advertising.

Indeed, in volleyball, everyone has a specific position and a specific function which requires a certain set of skills that complement those of others. We can’t do it without using the skills of our partners. When the ball is sent onto your adversary’s side, the receiver needs to send the ball to a setter with the utmost delicacy, who, in turn, sends the ball with diabolical precision to a wing spiker to finish off the point in a most brutal manner. No one can switch positions; there’s too much know-how involved. Each individual brings their own specific expertise to make the collective work as effective as possible, and to see the action through. 


It’s the same in advertising.

On a volleyball court, just as in an agency, to win you need strong thinking, strategy, ingenuity, agility, coordination among people, a mastery of your role, and very specific talents that bring added value to each step.

To lose a point in volleyball is like a little death (there are at least 130 points played per game - volleyball can kill you). Your adversary wants to crush you mentally and will scream as though they’ve won the World Cup with every point won, just to hammer down on those on the other side of the net. It can hurt!



Losing a pitch is the same thing. It can also feel like you’re dying a little inside, it’s a lot of concerted effort, engagement, time spent and energy burned. With each defeat, the whole group feels it, and we tell ourselves that, together, we weren’t strong enough, we doubt ourselves and our team. But you have to pick yourself up right away. You don’t have time to cry over it because the next pitch is around the corner, the next campaign coming out, and quickly. It’s a hectic rhythm, you need volatility as well as endurance.



In advertising you need to be sharp - just like a volleyball player at the highest level - to be able to keep your lucidity, not get taken down by fatigue, to be able to start the next battle right away. The physical training that I do every week helps me in volleyball as well as in my ad career. 

I’ve also learned, thanks to volleyball, that a team is more important than individual talent. I have two golden places, I’m an attacker in volleyball and I’m a creative in an agency. In both cases I have to score points, it’s usually me that’s congratulated because I close actions, it’s my films that people see. But I don’t forget that I have a team, partners, who accompany me in every project, and it’s thanks to all these added talents that we can make great campaigns or score magnificent points!

A quick volleyball joke to wrap things up: 
If volleyball was easy, it would be called football! Fellow volleyball players in advertising will get that one! 


Gilles Ficheteberg is co-founder and CCO at Rosapark
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