Third umpires take a front foot this cricket season in Hitachi’s new TVC

Hitachi Cooling & Heating India has released a ‘Coolest Third Umpire’ campaign. 

“As cricket is not just a game but also an emotion in India, the brand endeavour’s to connect widely with the internet-savvy and cricket-loving generation through this quirky campaign. Establishing a strong connection with millennial consumers, the company has made a strategic marketing shift with a focus on new sports branding and emerging digital media avenues. Betting big on the cricket season, the company is driving cutting-edge digital marketing strategies to take the social media world by storm,” the company said. 

The third umpire gives the ultimate decision in cricket, but nobody knows what he looks like. What does he does in free time? Is he cool or is he serious? Driving netizen’s curiosity for the Third Umpire, Hitachi’s quirky campaign aims to reveal the identity of the Third Umpire and establish a humorous cross connection, a cross-over of the world of cricket, and the new exciting features of Hitachi air conditioners that never fail to amaze its customers. With this campaign, Actor Kiku Sharda is returning in its new Coolest Third Umpire avatar to entertain and engage people in this season of cricket and heat. With a fun teaser the campaign which will have 5 very entertaining episodes will be taking on all major social platforms – Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. In addition to Hindi, the video will also be available in Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam.

Talking about the new campaign Nilesh Shah, Senior VP, Business Planning and Marketing, Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning India Ltd. said, “We are committed to revolutionising the way consumer’s perceive and connect with Air Conditioning products in India. After the huge success of “Nothing Dirty” social media song & “Who is Suraj” social media content AV which crossed 30 Crore video views on Youtube alone, the company was motivated to create another fun-filled, humour-packed, and highly entertaining video campaign.Catering to a wide audience, we have put the spotlight now on cricket season with our ‘Coolest Third Umpire’ Campaign. As every cricket season causes frenzy among fans and Actor Kiku Sharda is a household name so there would be no better time and person to present our ‘Coolest Third Umpire’ campaign. We are optimistic to cross more than millions of organic views with this cutting-edge campaign.”

Actor-Comic Kiku Sharda talking about his association with the brand shared, “I personally am a huge fan of Cricket. While watching matches I often used to picture funny scenarios about the mysterious Third Umpire. What he would look like or dress like or maybe snoring through the match when he is not needed. I was excited to work on this concept and I hope people will enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed working in it. Hitachi is a great brand and I am delighted that I got to embody their Coolest Third Umpire.”

Hitachi’s quirky campaign is written by popular actor and cricket buff, Suresh Menon and has been created by the GroupM Content team in partnership with One Network Entertainment.