Brief Explanation

An Unparalleled Journey Just like you have to do like the Romans in Rome, in India, you have to take to cricket, especially if you want to be a serious sportswear brand. Exactly what Nike did by being the official apparel sponsor of the Team India - as part of its larger objective to be the most authentic voice in Indian cricket. And the T20 World Cup (Sri Lanka, 2012) worked as one more opportunity for the brand to deepen its connect with the Cricket Crazy Youth (CCY) of India. Every little boy ever born in India, has dreamt of playing in the Indian cricket team. And the difference between the 15 who make it and the millions who fail, is often one of desire and perseverance. How badly do they want it? Were they ready to ‘Bleed Blue’? As Nike posed these questions, the ‘PARALLEL JOURNEYS’ idea was born to mirror the billion parallel journeys of Indian CCYs hungry to earn their blue – journeys, which ironically at any given day, actually ran parallel to the journeys of the current Team India cricketers! The TVC captured hundreds of parallel journeys of real cricket playing youth and Team India athletes, from the moment they wake up through every moment of their daily rituals of training until the ultimate moment before the big game. The film featured no actors, only real cricket players from across the country - that’s how authentic Nike wanted to be! The campaign reached a staggering 75 million people through TV, helped Nike double its fans of the Nike Cricket Facebook page to 2 million with close to 1 millions fans added during the campaign, got 1.2 million views on YouTube (the highest ever for Nike India and for any Indian ad), garnered 38 million impressions across online media and mobile, helped the Nike cricket business to grow by 45% and the overall Nike business to record its highest ever like-to-like-stores growth of 30% in value (in a year where the Asia-Pacific region saw a mere 5.2% growth in the sportswear category), ensured that ‘Nike cricket India’ is ‘Googled’ far more than its competitors and established Nike Cricket as the No. 1 sportswear brand on Facebook and the 4th most popular brand in social media in India. The campaign helped exceed targets, better benchmarks and deepened the brand’s association with cricket in India.