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The use of nationalism in sport and marketing as a brand has been widely noted and commented on by cultural critics. India is no stranger to this case.
Sport has been widely regarded as a peaceful alternative to war as a mode of competitive nationalism, which in turn has been exploited in the marketing of sport as commodity.
While this tactic has been practically legitimised in advertisements connected to multinational sporting events, 'Fan Banna Padega' marks a first in the appropriation of national ethos in the promotion of a sports league.
On face value, such appropriation may be condonable in view of the foundational myth of the ISL. When the Indian Super League kicked off its inaugural season, it bore a messianic hope for putting India right up there in the world football map.
It was one in a series of sports leagues launched in the country ever since the Indian Premier League set a successful precedent for the city based franchise system.
While the latter has encashed the popularity of cricket in India, the marketing strategies of the other leagues were necessarily more embedded in a bid for survival and competitive expansion.
While the inaugural season of the ISL introduced an IPL-esque window for an annual showpiece with international presence in the Indian football calendar, no pains were spared to promote the league as the much needed inspiration in the 'endangered' life of the beautiful game in India, in the form of 'angel' investments and 'big' players from around the world.
Indeed, it would have felt like a huge ego boost for the audiences of the sport in India, extant and prospective, to see foreign players making up the bulk of the playing elevens in an Indian football league.
Perhaps it was finally that definitive push that would catapult us onto a definitive track of becoming the best by playing and competing with the best.
Five years down the line, presumably, the ISL has been keeping up the good job, blessed by the All Indian Football Federation into a full season league now.
And staying true to its aspiration of elevating Indian football into a truly world class aesthetic phenomenon, the advertisement campaign for the currently ongoing season reminds football fans in India of their duty to become fans of Indian football, as they are playfully admonished with the imperative: "Fan banna padega".
Indeed, the advertisement seems to drive home the ultimate expression of a cornerstone for any spectator sport - that, as David Fraser stated, a "game is not simply played for the players", but the fans are no less as integral to its experience. More so for football. Unfortunately, 'Fan Banna padega' falls foul of its intended message in several places.
The ad campaign for the 2018-19 season is fashioned as a clarion call to football fans in India to rise and mobilise, to throw their weight behind Indian football.
It's easy to trace the spiritual predecessor of the ad in the famous video posted by the skipper of the national football team, Sunil Chhetri, on the eve of the Hero Intercontinental Cup earlier this year.
It was a moral appeal to Indians who love the sport, and stay up nights to watch their favourite European teams lock horns, to reserve some of their passion for 'Indian football'.
The depiction of that emotion is very evident in the very first moments of 'Fan Banna Padega'.
When someone admires a goal scoring moment in the gameplay of a foreign league and muses that something has to change if Indian football has to reach international standards, a fan of the Indian football team (clad in the distinctive light blue jersey with the AIFF logo on the top left) promptly coaches him that for effecting that change one has to first become a fan of Indian football.
Chhetri himself makes an appearance later on, albeit in a Bengaluru FC shirt, with a throwback to his tweet plea.
The Indian football team fan makes several appearances throughout the video, but gradually disappears in the pomp and din of the fans of the different franchises of the ISL.
By the time the ad concludes with the information regarding the date of commencement of Season 5 and the broadcasting platforms, there is a decisive shift in focus.
The ISL is one of the two flagship football leagues in India, alongside the I-League, recognised by the AIFF and the Asian Football Confederation.
Despite the absence of territorial exclusivity, by styling 'Fan banna padega' as a fan anthem for inspiring the future of Indian football as a whole.
It appropriates a national aspiration, very much on the lines of Patanjali's not-so-subtle invocation of the dream of economic independence, to sell its brand.
Moreover, considering that the ISL is a direct competitor to the I-League in the domestic circuit, 'Fan banna padega' ends up blurring the line between the product and the market, with apparent complicity on part of the AIFF as the market regulator.
The campaign goes as far as to ride a recent national success - we see a fan of the Indian football team reading a news report of the India U-20 triumph over their Argentine counterparts - for which the league cannot claim direct credit.
And that is the farthest the ad attempts to tell us about what the utility of the product.
In a striking departure from the imagery commonly used in football league advertisements, 'Fan banna padega' does not bother to include gameplay clips from past editions of the league, therefore omitting to provide samples which would help the 'new' fan to develop expectations about the quality of the product he is morally enjoined to consume.
If 'Come on, India, let's football' was a light-hearted invitation to participate in the joy that football is, branding the ISL as a glocal celebration of the sport, 'Fan banna padega' is an authoritative persuasion to engage despite the pain that football (read: ISL) might be.
The message in the advertisement has the unmistakable flavour of protectionism that has gone hand in hand with the free market myth ever since the Industrial Revolution.
It employs the oft used Swadeshi rhetoric, camouflaging the intended objective in the promotion of the 'Indian' Super League as a product in a saturated market dominated by (yes, you guessed right) European leagues by inducing football fans into patronising a homegrown event as a patriotic obligation.
'Fan banna padega' would then be just another ad campaign to ride the bandwagon of commercial nationalism that projects a product as an end unto itself.
Very recently, Aaditya Narayan reflected on the bizarre management model associated with the league that ironically looks to curb fan passion in the stadiums.
Observing the growing disllusionment of fans across franchises, he wondered whether "the goodwill for the product is more important than the football".
This may be a question asked too late in the day if the ad campaign was anything to go by. Despite the foundational myth, 'Fan Banna Padega' was perhaps never about the fans, the country or the sport.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article are those of the author and do not reflect those of Sportskeeda.
