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LONDON: An advertisement in Belgium promoting the newly accelerated Eurostar trains recently caused a rare sense-of-humor failure in Britain.

The ad, a poster showing a shaven-headed English soccer hooligan urinating into a teacup, was discovered by British journalists who traveled to Brussels for the opening of the new high-speed train linking London to the English Channel. That created the odd spectacle of Fleet Street newspapers - never shy about resorting to national stereotypes when, say, the England soccer team plays a European rival - crying foul.

The Daily Mail quoted politicians as saying they thought the campaign was “disgusting” and “racist.”

The indignation eased when cooler heads consulted their travel guidebooks and realized that the pose of the “skinhead” closely matched that of a Brussels landmark, the Manneken Pis, a sculpture of a little boy who pees into a fountain.

This was all intended to show that London was now just “around the corner,” as the ads put it.

By shaving 20 minutes off journeys from London to Brussels and Paris, the new line has indeed brought the British, the French and the Belgians closer than ever - at least, if city-center-to-city-center travel is the measure. But the strikingly different ads marking the occasion in France, Britain and Belgium show that nationality can still trump geography in Europe.

At a time when some international marketers have embraced centralized advertising, Eurostar works with different ad agencies in each of the three markets: In Brussels, with TBWA, part of Omnicom Group; in London, with Fallon, owned by Publicis Groupe; and, in Paris, with Leg, whose parent is Havas.

“Strategically, what we're trying to do is the same in all three markets,” said Nicholas Mercer, Eurostar's commercial director. “But the way we express it in each country can be very different.”

In France, as in Belgium, Eurostar opted for humor. “Oubliez Waterloo” - “forget Waterloo” - urged a print ad featuring a painting of Napoleon, cheekily calling attention to the fact that the London terminus for Eurostar has been moved out of a station named after Napoleon's final defeat and into the refurbished St. Pancras International.

Other ads in the French campaign also highlighted the idea of change on the British side of the Channel Tunnel, while playing to French stereotypes about British eccentricity. One of the print ads, for instance, showed a British bobby casting off his uniform and streaking onto a soccer field.

In Britain, meanwhile, Fallon's campaign includes a 60-second television spot that takes viewers on a tour of St. Pancras. The camera lovingly pans across the grand expanse of the Victorian station.

“Say hello to 186 miles per hour,” the voice-over says.

That the Belgians and the French opted for humor while the British played it straight is “somewhat counterintuitive,” acknowledged Laurence Green, chairman of Fallon London. But, in a country where the railways have a less than glorious recent history, the on-time, on-budget completion of the high-speed line and the St. Pancras renovation - together, a £6 billion, or $12.4 billion, project - called for a sense of occasion, he added.

“It was important that a bit of national pride was invoked,” he said. “Even the most skeptical Brit is humbled by that building now.”

In Belgium, meanwhile, the strategic director at TBWA/Brussels, Bert Denis, said he was surprised by the reaction to the ad with the urinating hooligan. To Belgians, he said, London is seen as a place where people can express themselves more freely, and the campaign was simply intended to reflect that.”

To reinforce the idea that London is just around the corner, Eurostar has even taken over part of a Brussels bar called the Walvis, or Whale, turning it into an English pub. On one side, Belgian beers are served; on the other, English ales.

After a few pints, might the Belgians and the British agree that the storm over the Eurostar ad was just a tempest in a teacup?

Eric Pfanner can be reached at adcol@iht.com.