Google Gemini turns cricket fandom into an AI contest for ICC T20 World Cup

The pitch is set, the squad is in, and this time, it's not just the cricketers making the headlines.

AI has once again got India's cricket-crazy fans reaching for their phones. Google Gemini has dropped a campaign that's part tech revolution, part nostalgia trip, and unmissable. Picture this: Ravi Shastri, yes, the Tracer Bullet himself, sharing screen with women's World Cup winning champion Jemimah Rodrigues and Farah Khan, the director who once made an entire nation groove to ‘dil jumping jhapang jampak jampak’ during IPL season.

The campaign has announced 'The Official AI Fan Champion' contest that's simple yet creative: Indian cricket fans are invited to bring out their inner artists by creating the ‘craziest avatars’ using Google Gemini's AI capabilities, share them on social media, and stand a chance to win tickets to watch the ICC T20 World Cup live. Because let's face it, watching cricket from the stands, with the roar of the crowd, beats any living room experience.

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The campaign brings together an unlikely but brilliant trio. They were featured as judges who were going to judge the craziest fans. Rodrigues, representing the new generation of Indian cricket, and Khan were seen dissapproving Shastris avatar, saying he needs to go crazier.

Rodrigues' featuring in the recent brand campaigns is a reminder that the women's game is no longer playing second fiddle, after the Indian women's cricket team won the Women's T20 World Cup last year.

And then there's Farah Khan, the face of the iconic IPL campaign that had everyone in between bouncing off their couches with every boundary. Her presence might not be accidental. It might be a calculated stroke of nostalgia, a callback to when she transformed cricket viewing from a passive activity into a full-blown dance party, anywhere and everywhere.

This campaign also marks a cultural moment, the formal entry of AI tech giants into India's cricket ecosystem. Following ChatGPT's partnership with the ongoing Women's Premier League, Google Gemini's move signals that AI isn't content to stay in boardrooms and coding studios. It wants a piece of the cricket pie, and in India, that could be the biggest pie there is.

Google has turned fandom into fuel, asking fans to actively engage with their AI platform. Create an avatar. Share it. Win tickets. It's participatory, it's creative.

What makes this campaign particularly clever is its mutually beneficial setup. Fans get what they crave: a shot at World Cup tickets. Google Gemini gets what it craves: users and engagement, in a market where cricket isn't just a sport, it's a religion.

The brand has strategically aimed to capitalise on India's unquenchable love for cricket, transforming fan passion into an interactive asset. It's marketing that doesn't feel like marketing because it taps into genuine emotion. Every avatar created is another user familiarising themselves with Gemini's capabilities. Every share is free advertising. Every ticket winner becomes a walking testimonial.

This isn't AI selling itself as the future. This is AI embedding itself in the present, in the things Indians already love.

As AI companies increasingly enter different industries, from entertainment to education to e-commerce, sports, particularly cricket in India, represent a uniquely powerful frontier. The emotional investment is profound.

Google Gemini's campaign understands that in India, cricket isn't just watched, it's lived.