We wanted to promote MLB in India

Why?

Because MLB’s international ambitions are audacious. MLB has been helping baseball organizations in India since the 1980’s.

In 2008 MLB talent scouts carried out a hunt for pitching talent through a reality TV show in India and signed two javelin throwers for training in the US.

India is bursting with curiosity for experiences of the rest of the world. The market for world sports in India is growing in leaps and bounds.

People fall in love with a sport over the course of centuries. The origins of baseball in Japan and Latin America, the next best home of baseball outside the US, date back to the late 19th Century.

In that case, how could we promote baseball in a culture that defines itself by its love for baseball’s sibling, cricket?

INDIAVISION

Every once in a while an infatuation will transcend the scope of its meaning and bloom into a passionate pursuit for the unattainable.

A single response to a flirtatious gesture is all it takes to arrest two into an eternal conversation. Attraction transports one to the surface, then surface fades to reveal another, and yet another, luring one in.

Baseball looks at adolescent India from the corner of its eyes. Content with its inheritance, cricket, India has always dismissed this infatuation till recent times.

Baseball is seductive because it is American like Coca Cola and Pizza Hut. They are all glossy and slick, big and provocative. Baseball is fashionable with its shiny metallic bats, extravagant with leather gloves in every fielder’s hand, provocative with its franchise names, logos, and outfits.

Looking through its own prism, adolescent India’s infatuation will mature bewitched by an aggressive, straight-talking and unforgiving organism: a game that puts individuals on the spotlight and keeps each on their toes; a game that rewards the opportunist yet unforgiving with its small window of opportunity. Adolescent India will relate with the audacity in the proclaimed intent to hit high in the air, deep in the field or out of the park. They will appreciate the informality in the liberty to throw the bat after the job of hitting is done.

Today baseball is played by a secret few who leverage their skills in cricket to indulge in this infatuation. More will pick up the game to stand out. Younger kids will step up inspired by their older brothers and sisters. At 13 they’ll play on soccer fields with imaginary diamonds sharing one bat amongst 10. By 18 they will arrange night outs to watch the New York Yankees play rivals Red Sox. They’ll watch it in one of their friends’ home or a sports cafe or on their HP Inspiron laptop over the internet. One of them will have a Yankee hat on, another will have a Red Sox t-

shirt. By 2012, ESPNSTAR will have Dilip Kudwalli, who scored India’s first run, with a home-run in the Asian Championships in 1987, at their studious as an expert panelist on the World Series. The same year, Nathan’s would have opened shop in India with paneer hotdog on its menu. By 2020 an Indian will pitch for an MLB franchise. In 25 years baseball will be one of many sports India indulges in. A ten year old would have a cricket bat, a soccer ball, a basketball and a baseball in his room.

Our objective is to offer a flirtatious gesture seeking that first response.

Baseball is a game of HustlersGet to the point: Do or Die — 3 Strikes, No QuarterUnder the Spotlight — On your ToesCelebrate those who see a run where there is none Baseball is a product of a value systemBaseball = America

&INDIAFinding common ground

Acknowledge global spotlight and seek attention at the individual level

T r a n s i t i o n i n g f r o m socialistic abstention to individualistic indulgence

Hungry for diverse cultural experiences of the world

Surging self esteem fueled by economic boom. In turn, inspires ambitions to design destiny

Strategy

Introduce: break the ice with a wider sports-fan-base

Experience: extend a home for interested folk to experience Baseball

Learn: help young players seek mentors

Introduced MLB as Baseball and Baseball as “The Hustlers Game”. We made posters meant to be distributed through sports magazines.

Designed MLB Lounge—a few concept stores in select cities—as a destination where one can experience baseball. The stores would have batting cages, bleachers to watch MLB games on big screens, a restaurant that serves hot dogs, and some equipment and merchandise.

Find a Basepal: A community website where Indian teenagers picking up baseball could seek mentorship or just hang-out with baseball fans from the US who are keyed in to MLB.

Jake Dubs - Copywriter | Aditi Sheorey - Communication Strategist | Husayn Raza - Art Director | Sriram Venkitachalam - Brand Strategist