Here’s a question: What do Olympic Heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill, former Formula One World Champion Jenson Button and World #1 Golfer Rory McIlroy have to do with Star Wars?
The answer? Nothing. Or at least that was the answer until someone at Santander decided to make this frankly bizarre advert.
It’s apparently aimed at promoting the addition of Blaze Laserlights to the Santander-sponsored Boris Bikes in London. They’re a clever-sounding idea aimed at making drivers more aware of cyclists by projecting the image of a bike onto the road six metres ahead of a rider.
But it took us a couple of times of watching the video (and a careful re-reading of the press release) to work that out, because there’s just so much random stuff going on here.
A cool-looking clip from the new Star Wars film segues into a group of people riding Boris Bikes wearing what almost-could-be-but-aren’t-quite Stormtrooper outfits.
They face off with another group wearing similarly not-quite-but-almost rebel pilot suits before one of the nearly Stormtroopers peels off his not quite Stormtrooper mask to reveal… Jenson Button.
“Jenson Button, what are you doing here?” says Jess Ennis-Hill, who it turns out is the leader of the not-quite rebel pilots. She might as well be asking the question about the whole advert. And it only gets weirder…