Saturday, April 11, 2009

Nexxt is whattt - Cricket is Hott??

Just yesterday surfing through the channels I came across this bizarre ad ever. No...not the LG..Don't be misled by the title..they suck anyway. 'welcome to the touch generation' - oh yeah?? in comparision to the killer i-Phone (don't even get started with me on features, price, blah blah blah..i-Phone rocks..Hands down...)  even with so much Aamir doing various acrobatic dances, nothing comes closer to the pure beauty of touch that i-Phone offers...


Anyways it's the latest Pepsi's "First Ball ka Captain" commercial featuring Dhoni and the same guy from Aircel commercial, you know the one who fears his chances and Dhoni magically assures him after few clicks of button logs on to cricinfo and all that. Talking of which what the heck was that whole ad about? - Hello?? 3-G ain't there boss.. it's still raining GPRS here..Whom are they trying to fool - music downloads, ticket booking, net browsing..all this with only Aircel?? I just don't get the funda behind this campaign..

Again..coming back to the Pepsiiiiiiiiiiiii.. well..as the name implies you drink drink drink Pepsi, see the lid, nothing written? ..no prob..drink drink drink, something written? ..Hurrah!!!!! You just won yourself tickets to ICC T-20 world cup at England.. This, in the words of Punita Lal, Executive Director - Marketing, Pepsi Co India, " which we are introducing to spice up this year’s tournament to add even more excitement to the matches and give our cricket crazy consumers the cricket experience of a lifetime." That set me into thinking for what might be next just to set already mindless craziest and well ..let's just stick to those two.. fans..

  1. Getting to Bat the first ball..obvious..ain't it? When you start with bowling..then the batting..
  2. First Ball wicket-keeping
  3. First Ball fielding
  4. Or matter of fact just to keep the pulse even more racing why not have it at the last ? Say Last ball captain, Getting to bat the last ball, Getting to field the last ball
  5. Still not enough? Hmm..let's say ..commentating for the first 5 minutes..This just doesn't sound that exciting. I know. But hey we are crazy after all..
  6. Bringing drinks during the breaks- this was already there if I remember well.
  7. Chance to participate in the first five minutes of team discussion. Wow..irresistable..ain't it? The drinks would go sky-rocketing if this comes up..
  8. Chance to give the prizes to the winning captain..that might just mess things up..you know in case India lose but conditions always apply..right?
  9. Chance to appear the first 1 minute in the ad commercial? hmm..that might be too lonely if this started with Coke--they just got Gambhir now who is desperate to sell friends..
  10. Man..how did I miss the most pivotal of ..Umpring?? Woah!!!!!!!!! Umpring for the first ball, first minute..In the ranks of 10 this might be just be 6..But still it's appetising enough..And actually this might turn out to be a advantage.. Just keep saying no-ball, no-ball and you get to be there more and more..I know with so many camera's analysing things it just can't happen that way..but let's say it can..how aweshomeee...
As crazy as those things might sound I still feel at least some of it might become reality. Ok, just to keep the things straight this particular campaign is only to bowl against greats like Dilip Vengserkar, Jonty Rodes etc and not a live match. It wouldn't be surprising at all just to pulp the already crazy cricket fan, they might just do anything

The first time I felt something seriously wrong was during the last IPL . Commentators talking to the players while on the dressing room is understandable, but talking directly with the guy who is batting or with a person who is fielding and with the guy who is bowling..You gotta be kidding me..It was annoying and irritating.. What's your strategy? How are you going to bowl now? How are your chances?? - my foot...And then the technology improvement is just fascinating to say the least - hawk eye, aerial view of all the balls with the trajectories, ball-by ball motion within an over, extending the same thing further ..all the balls bowled by the bowler, lbw through third umpire, noice meter to check for an edge, and the most recent to hit the screens - heat analysis..just to see where the ball strikes. 

This isn't all. In one of the articles from Dataquest I read during the last IPL the live images clicked by King Khan through his cell were sent automatically to all the guys who subscribed to it. I don't know how they did it as there was no such publicitiy at all but take it from me it did happen. In either ways these things keep getting more and more --technology and marketing...all for one cause--to cash in on the crazy customers...If you have any more crazy ideas do put it in or if you think I missed any..just put it in your comments...Until then...you youngstupistaaansss... see ya...

1 comment:

Pavan said...

my 2 cent opinion: Too much of T20 is bad for beauty of the game. U dont see too many beautiful looking shots in T20. And IPL has made it worse. And a wastage of atleast 3 hrs a day for more than one month a year (even if u watch parts of the 2 matches per day)??? Yuck yuck... I know all this is not related to the post but who cares :D

And Yossarian, agree wid u on the point of talking to players on the field. Would love to see one of the fielders have a catch land right on his head during one such 'talk' :P :D