Cupcake Comedy and the Shrinking of Great Matches
“History repeat karenge, padosi ko defeat karenge” chant a bunch of India fans as they mimic a Rohit Sharma … but so far removed from the flamboyant former India captain’s part lazy Sunday stroll, part “haan bhai, trophy toh meri hi thi” energy. “Greatest rivalry hai” reminds the Pakistani fan in green. Who would say that in everyday conversation?
This is what I call lazy advertising — poor scripting, poorer creative imagination and a lame attempt to infuse humour. I can almost imagine the product brief would have mentioned that this is the tournament’s greatest rivalry and the marketing task would have been to aggregate unprecedented reach. What the creative team needed to have done is to bring alive the rivalry from an emotional or humourous persepctive like the iconic Mauka Mauka campaign…but to just say “greatest rivalry” is like describing Diwali simply as the festival of lights.
Just when I thought that it could get no worse, comes the India versus South Africa Super 8 call to watch promotion on Star Sports. Cringe is just an euphemism — the set-up and produciton values are third rate, suspect acting and an apology for a script that falls so flat. The accent of the purported South African fan is so contrived … it has none of the musical qualities of the happy people from the Rainbow Nation.
How long will Star Sports continue to exploit the idea of the “missing cup” and the “chokers tag”? In this age of meme fests and creator-led versatile humour, do they not understand that they are just flogging dead horses here? And hey.. haven’t the Proteas shed the chokers tag a while back?
David Ogilvy believed in respect for the audience. Modern sports broadcasters sometimes underestimate that. And fans punish that instantly, which is why social media is abuzz with the cringe fest memes. A sports promo must create urgency that this is unmissable and fan the narrative — who is the villain and who is the hero? Star perhaps felt that the banter which worked in the past would continue to do the trick.
The strategic mistake is that the promos here lean on mockery rather then elevate the rivalry. Great promos elevate the moment, the athlete and the fan. In that sense, I would argue that the Mauka Mauka campaign belongs to the previous decade. It is time to think afresh keeping in mind the realities of the sport, the geo politics and the track record. These promos try to belittle the opponent.
Modern fans are culturally aware. They detect cheap shots instantly. If the audience feels manipulated or insulted, the brand loses authority. You cannot treat South Africa on the same plane as Pakistan. They are the champions of the World Test Championship and have recently won a Test series on Indian soil. This is a team that has a high-skill match-up and the match on Sunday will perhaps be the acid test for India in this tournamnet thus far. It is defintiely not cup cake comedy.
A T20 World Cup match is about national identity, collective viewing and brand safe environment for sponsors. When promos feel flippant, they shrink the scale of the event. And scale is everything in broadcast monetisation.
India versus Pakistan on the field is no rivalry, but in broadcast terms it remains the best spectacle ever. From rivalry, the essence has now moved to complete domination. For the audience is remains 180 minutes of psychologically loaded high-stake frenzy. To my mind, India vs South Africa is about unfinished business. It is about tension and heartbreak. Promotions don’t just fill ad breaks; they shape tournament prestige, sponsor confidence, global perception and cultural memory.
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