BLUE BILLION!

Since some days, Pepsi has started its advertisements leading up to the World Cup Cricket championship of 2007. The theme is "Blue Billion". Blue refers to the colour worn by the Indian team, and billion to the population of India - who will all be cheering Team India.

Interestingly, the Blue Billion campaign will also mark a departure from the company's traditional idol and star-centred campaigns. The company’s star-studded endorser lineup includes Sachin Tendulkar (this guys is a very very very very very famous crickter), Amitabh Bachchan (very very very very very famous actor, he's like 60 but very hot still) and Shah Rukh Khan (very very very very very famous actor). You need to be here to understand what kind of icons these three people are, among the three I guess they do all the adds of indian television!“Fan empowerment is the buzzword here. We will start with a 360-degree campaign and will look at clubbing together a community of cricket crazy individuals,” Pepsi said. Anysways, in another post I tell you about indian idols, now let's come back to cricket.

No matter all the exitement of the BLUE BILLION campaing, this is what an indian blogger writes about it, i found it randomly on the net, whole fnding more on the Blue Billion thingy:

"This is most odd. The advertisers, the advertising company, the viewers - all of them have nothing whatsoever to do with all the people who make up the bulk of the billion. They don't know them, they don't see them, they have no concern for them. In fact, they revile them for even being alive: "the greatest problem is overpopulation; the poor breed because they lack any other form of entertainment; population control is necessary for India to advance..." So why this great embrace of the masses just to be able to claim that we are a billion? Why take pride in numbers, when just those numbers cause you such anguish? Only a small fraction of the billion Indians have any interest in cricket.The bankruptcy and ugliness of India's fragrant elite!"

Both perspectives deserve respect, as always ;-) ... however from my point of view after almost 3 months in India, even if not the entire billion, a very high % of indians die for cricket.You can see it on the streets, every time, at all levels. Yesterday I passed by a kind of fnacy cricket club close to my house (it's called MIG Cricket Club, in Bandra East, Mumbai) and it was such a characteristic scene. Some teams were playing on the field, which you can see from outside, normally since the field is surrounded by a "fence" that allows you to see all from outside. BUT when important stuff happens there (games, parties, events) the fence is covered, so that nobody can see. Well, guys from the neighborhood kind of set up two high stalls and a lot of people were sitting there watching the match 'from outside' and the rest where just looking for small holes in the fence to see the match. Cricket matches are long ...

I like the campaign. Not being an indian and not being at all a cricket fan (I do not even understand the game) I must say that the adds and the nationalistic feeling that it wakes up and that it reflects is cool and the fact that someone could conceive one thing that supposely unifies ONE BILLION people, is very interesting. I don't know, maybe in the end the word BILLION is what sounds so good for me ;-)