A sweet idea

With football fever revving up in earnest, it's mildly amusing to see which brands are joining in with the fun, and who's opting out of the mad samba spectacle.

I'm a bit disappointed with Coke's creativity. After the wonderful "share a Coke with..." personalised bottles last year, all they've done is recycle that one, with the names of the team - and just the German team as far as I can see.

A much sweeter and cleverer idea is that from Kinder Schokolade  with the Fußball-Star-Edition. The usual smiling youngster has been replaced by some less familiar-looking Jungs. Or are they less familiar? On closer inspection, they are young versions of famous German players from good old Rudi Völler, through to Michael Ballack and Jens Lehmann to stars of today such as Lukas Podolski and Sami Khedira.

Brilliant idea - it has everything: collectability, multi-generation appeal, topicality, limited edition rarity, the awww factor for the mums, and totally in character with the brand.

All they have to do is win and those packs will be worth a bomb one day.

But then again, England are going to win this time, aren't they?