Ex-rugby legend Matt Dawson launches the Hakarena

By on Friday, September 25, 2015

The Rugby World Cup kicked off spectacularly on home soil last week. To mark this historic occasion, menswear retailer Jacamo enlisted Matt Dawson to lead local team Battersea Ironsides and supporters up and down the country to perform a new dance, the ‘Hakarena’.

Britons are being encouraged to express their support of the home side with the new dance – a humorous take on the All Black’s famous Haka routine. Performing the Hakarena is simple and requires four steps consisting of arm slaps, legs slaps, chest slaps and a hip wriggle to the specially created music track.

Jacamo’s aim was to create a fun, relevant campaign, which they have certainly succeeded in. It gained international coverage and was played on ITV This Morning and BBC breakfast programmes, with the video being watched over 2 million times on Youtube.

A spokesperson from Jacamo said: “Our customers talk about how fans are the 16th man when it comes to big competitions and this is our way of getting behind the home side and having a bit of a giggle with it.

The #Hakarena takes a typically English, self-deprecating look at what the English version of the legendary Haka might be, but of course no stunt is without negative response, and has been described as ‘shameful’ by Maori politician Sir Pita Sharples. Hey, you can’t please everybody!

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