Nelson Mandela takes part in Torino Winter Olympics campaign

The campaign has enlisted the help of former South African president and Italian tenor, with the aim of raising awareness of the positive messages of the Olympics and to encourage public interest in the games.

Mandela and Bocelli feature in two separate spots, where they invite people to join them in celebrating the Olympic spirit, spoken over shots of memorable sporting moments.

The ads follow on from the success of three previous campaigns for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Olympic Games and Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

The ads will be made available to global broadcasters involved in the major sporting event.

Visa, which is sponsoring the Winter Olympics, is also due to launch its campaign created by Grey London, featuring a series of humorous ads to be broadcast in November.

Rushes has just finished post-production on the ads, including the first spot "petrol", which features three stereotypical male truckers who keep stopping at petrol stations to get enough points to scoop tickets to the Winter Games.

Two of the eldest men continuously leave the younger man behind as they go in to pay for the petrol and secure more points, each time getting a novelty ice hockey figure to give to the younger man who is delighted at his new toys, yet oblivious to the pair's intentions.

The campaign comprises two 30-second ads and seven 10-second idents directed by Scott Vincent and produced by Greg Jordan. The production company behind the campaign was Hungryman.

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