Benita Chacko
Advertising

Star Sports launches campaign for IPL's opening match

Unlike the previous IPL ads, this one makes no mention of the medium. 

Star Sports has launched a campaign for the opening match of the Indian Premier League (IPL) between Gujarat Titans (GT) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK). 

In the ad, we see Hardik Pandya and Ravindra Jadeja engaging in a friendly banter about who will win the March 31 match. While Pandya suggests that his team won the last time, despite it being its first season, Jadeja stresses that his team has won the IPL trophy four times.

The ad ends with both of them challenging each other in the team's respective languages. Pandya dares CSK with 'Toh aava de' and Jadeja dismisses him with 'Poda dei'

It is interesting how Star Sports has made up for the absence of MS Dhoni in the ad. While Pandya is GT's captain, CSK is led by Dhoni. Yet, we see Jadeja leading the charge in the campaign. And, this is because Dhoni is now the brand ambassador for Viacom18, which owns IPL's digital streaming rights. To compensate for his absence, the makers have used a life-size cutout of Dhoni that is brought to life with a wink. 

Unlike previous IPL ads that stressed on the television experience, this one makes no mention of the medium.

JioCinema is yet to launch its ad for the first match. 

Apart from Hindi, the campaign has been launched in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada languages.

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