By Malay Desai
From: JWT & Mindshare
About a month before the Cricket World Cup where India goes as defending Champion, energy drink Boost unveiled an anthem to cheer the team and their two ambassadors, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli. Composed, written by and starring Tamil music star GV Prakash, the song features a young team preparing for an inter-zonal championship. The visuals of the boys practicing at various locations are interspersed by studio shots of Dhoni and Kohli as well as Prakashsinging, all with sub-titles. Toward the end, as the team takes the field in a final, the Indian players are shown walking out to bat in a packed stadium.
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Dear GSK (and JWT),
First of all, this is nothing personal, as you might think as I’d also written about misleading claims of energy drinks in a cover story this month. With three weeks to go for the World Cup 2015, your anthemevokes the excitement close to what I feel when last man Ishantis batting with 100 runs to win.
Wait, I don't have a problem with anthems, many from Shakira to Shankar (Mahadevan) have indulged us in them before iconic sporting events, and some brands have made them without World Cups too. I liked how Micromaxconnected I-Day last year with its Hindi-friendlyhandset… and how even Vicks, a brand nobody would ever dream of creating an anthem, did a fine job in 2012by crowdsourcing sounds and roping in RanjitBarot.
I hate to break the news that your anthem, peppy as it may sound if force-fed, had perfect timing if this were World Cup 2007. Unfortunately, just a mundane song doesn't cut it for me, the cricket fan, especially when it sounds like the result of a brief which may have sounded like: ‘Yo boys, let’s do that Kolaveri di style, complete with Tam-lishlyrics and a Dhanush-like character and mix in passionate visuals of our heroes and common boys.’It tried to ride the success of a song which was a) an accidental viral video and b) released in 2011.
Maybe your creative guys from 2012 quit and you aren’t in touch, but they’d done a ‘Sachin anthem’ with Dhanush himself,which was slightly more hummable than this but got forgotten once the social media promotions expired. Are you having as bad a run in this department as your ambassador Dhoni’s in tests? If yes, emulate him - retire from the format!
Finally, as I made it to the end ’coz I had to write this,some remarks –the orange skies in most frames,the lazy dances and overall ‘college assignment’ quality of this anthem make it hard to believe you’re an ‘energy’ drink.
Here’s hoping Dhoni and Kohli don't watched it before the Cup, for their self-esteem is of national importance.
(If you must watcht his film, feed this link into your browser:‘http://bit.ly/Jan27ad’)
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