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Given India’s ‘crazy kiya re‘ affection towards Cricket, Indian Television has always had a major share of it dedicated to Cricket. Be it Cricket telecast or Cricket related programs or TV commercials, everyone can safely bank on Cricket for it’s mass appeal and wide reach among Indian junta.

Today, I am going to talk about TV commercials that have swamped Indian Television thanks to the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup. Some of the most entertaining and talked about commercials to hit Indian TV screens this World Cup season are:

> Tata Sky’s ‘Oye! Pappe‘ advertisement featuring a grassman is very witty, and immediately catches your attention. The humorous ad nicely captures the desperation of a common cricket fan to get the best possible coverage of cricket matches.

The second part also stars Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan next to the grassman, and delivers the final punch. Hilarious and Effective.

> Nike cricket ad is simply the best ad we have seen this season. DesiDabba has covered it before here.

Nike has very cleverly introduced Shrisanth and Jaheer as mere onlookers to the craziness of on-top-of-traffic-cricket. This signifies the importance companies are attaching to the the common cricket fans, rather than to cricketing stars. On the other hand Nike also seems to be playing safe with this approach – in the event of Indian team or Jaheer or Shrisanth not doing well in world cup, they can safely omit the tiny parts of commercial which show them, without diluting the quality and message they want to convey. A clever and very well executed campaign.

> As the official broadcaster of ICC World Cup 2007, SET Max has come up with a series of World cup commercials with punch line ‘Come Play!‘. The commercials are well shot and try to give viewers a Caribbean feel. Decently done.

> Pepsi has once again come up with an extravagant and star studded campaign for world cup. The campaign was launched in 2006 itself and named Blue Billion. A series of ads showcase the passion for cricket in India.

Among them one commercial which I liked personally is the one featuring then-dropped-from-team-and-captaincy Saurav Ganguly, saying ‘ooh aah india’. Pepsi and Saurav showed a lot of courage in coming up with a gutsy commercial.

Some other BlueBillion ads here, here, and the Blue Billion Music Video.

One of the recent ‘Ladega toh jeetega‘ commercial shows a crowd of fans teasing Indian cricket stars. Another most recent commercial to introduce Pepsi’s new flavor – ‘Pepsi Gold‘ which is being promoted as ‘World Cup Cola’ is also doing rounds. All the commercials are extravagant in typical Pepsi style, but they lack the punch. The humorous touch Pepsi has had in some of their other world cup campaigns – like the famous 1996 ‘Nothing official about it’ campaign or Sachin’s ‘Main kahan hoon‘ commercial – is missing. Pepsi’s shift from humor to passion does not seem to be working that well.

Clearly the two most successful commercials this World Cup, Nike and Tata Sky, make an impression with their focus on the cricket fans, rather than on Cricketers. What are your thoughts?

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