Adidas encourages players to play stress free in T20 World Cup campaign

Adidas’ latest campaign for the upcoming T20 World Cup created by Fundamental eschews the usual tropes to celebrate the power of releasing the pressure and urging the players to just play freely. Featuring many of the key players in the World Cup squad from the captain Rohit Sharma to the vice captain Hardik Pandya to Virat Kohli donning the jersey specially designed for the tournament. Set to the famed Queen track, "Under Pressure" the campaign seeks to encourage everyone to feel the unbridled power and joy that comes with releasing the pressure. 

Neeraj Kanitkar, co-founder & ECD, Fundamental said, "Just about every cricket campaign tries to raise the fever pitch, be intense and feed the fervour. We definitely didn't want to be one more of those anthems and Adidas too chose a different path. We wanted to release the pressure. The most joyous part of watching the Indian team during 2023 were the moments when they were free and unencumbered. It was a treat to watch them just having fun especially during the post match BTS videos. This is about capturing that feeling of playing the game with total freedom and unburdened by anything. Yes, cricket and the T20 World Cup mean everything and then some to us all. But you know what, past all the heavy duty stuff, it's just a bat, a ball, our eleven and the game we all love."

Talking about the extensive and logistically complex shoot, Neeraj said, "John Fredrick Peter Mayne, the director and Method Productions were spectacular partners in a crazy shoot that spanned from Dharamshala to Wankhede to Bengaluru. The feel of the film had to be radically different from the usual anthemic fare. That's what drove the choice of so many small and big things like Hardik blowing on the ball for good luck to the warming up with football sequence to how our players pump up and celebrate each other with the inside-helmet POV shots to the camaraderie, we wanted to feature things not usually seen in cricket campaigns. All driving just one thing: Just feel free guys. You got this."