Indian Nike Ad : Curious Cultural Mix

When my friends told me to watch the new Nike ad for India featuring Indian athletes there was a noticeable excitement about seeking each others opinions.  What I heard before seeing the ad was that it featured Deepika Padukone and some other women sports celebrities.  

Now not recognising the women other than Deepika in the ad could be a function of two things.  All the people who spoke to me about the ad were 45+ and therefore maybe out of the core target group that Nike generally aims for.  But it could also be a cultural flaw in the Indian sports regimen - the fact that we are still largely a nation of cricket lovers. So it was not surprising when I realised that the other female athletes turned out to be national hockey player Rani Rampal, Jyoti Ann Burrett the football player, Joshua Chinappa the national squash player, Ishita Malaviya India's first professional female surfer,  Namrata Purohit the youngest fully trained Scott Pilates instructors in the world, Harmanpreet Kaur the captain of the Indian cricket team, sprinter Shweta Hakke, amongst some others.  If you think that is a mouthful it is also a quiz on who's who in the world of Indian female sport.  And my guess is that even  your average 20 year old wouldn't be able to recognise these faces.  So has the use of the other celebrities in the ad worked?  Difficult to say.   If one wanted to celebrate female athletes what other option does one have but to use well known Indian women across many sports?  In any case Deepika carries the major weight of the celebrity power through the film.  

I have nothing much to say about the video, which was a pretty standard collage of female athletes doing their thing but I found the music quite fascinating and it reflected the Nike brand spirit quite well. The Nike brand is known to  use the visceral to shock and potray success as the consequence of merely trying harder.  And the focussed intensity which becomes the monomaniacal obsession to win.  For Nike performance is about the will and self-affirmation.  That comes through in the music 'my only competition is myself'. The music also kept haunting me through the video sometimes even distracting me ( or is that because I am a musician? ). First of all it is sung by American rapper Gizzle and set to a thumping anthem by Gene8ion.  Created in collaboration with Wieden+Kennedy Delhi and directed by French director Fran?ois Rousselet  the lyrics chart the rise of female sport across a diverse range of passions, including basketball, football, running, training and India's national obsession which is cricket.

Da Da Ding, Da Da Ding, Da Ding ( Lyrics )

 Wake up in the morning,

Coz I got goals

And I won’t take no for an answer

Got the grace of a dancer

The heart of a panther

I don’t understand ya

 If quit is your vocab

I cannot cope that

I want this so bad

I cannot back down

I will not give up

 You versus me ha?

I say good luck

 You know what this problem

Coz I don’t do

Unless I go full throttle

 And I might throw it on the

Instagram

Just to show you what the difference is

……. ( those are just the first few verses )

I am not quite sure how popular rap is in India as a genre, but if it is then the music should be successful.  However while the video has crossed 350,000 views on youtube the jingle had done only 12,000 views.  

If one were to look at the top musical video on youtube for 2015 it was Dheere Dheere Se Meri Zindagi featuring Hrithik Roshan and Sonam Kapoor sung by Yo Yo Singh.  The video had a whopping 146,442,448 views in 2015 and was the top music video of the year on youtube.

 I personally found the imagery in the Nike film  quite African American ( rap, hoodies, basketball etc ) and that was natural since the music has  African American roots which almost prompts a certain movement and editing pattern for any video.  And while even Dheere Dheere breaks into rap in the middle of the song, it is in Hindi. And my feeling was that the Indian audience will probably find it more easy on the ear to hear Hindi rap lyrics rather than English rap lyrics which may be largely lost on the mass audience.  After watching the video a few times I was left wondering if this was another great Nike ad or was  I was watching an American rap music video executed superbly with a few female sports stars thrown in for good measure.

Coming to my last point, I do find African Americanisms creeping into our daily language.  A number of people are greeting each with ' how are you bro?' or saying 'my bad'.  So is our absorption of American culture veering more towards African American rather than mainstream?

 I will leave that for you to answer.

And I wonder how many of us knew that it is World Population Day on 13th June and UNICEF has called on World Leaders to implement policies and make investments that allow girls to determine their future.  There is no doubt that Nike has done its bit and contributed to this great cause with this commercial irrespective of the adulation or criticism. So well done Nike!

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