Coldplay brings Indian flavour to Super Bowl

New Delhi: India was the cynosure of all eyes at the Super Bowl, America’s biggest sporting event, on Sunday, thanks to British alternative rock band Coldplay.
During the band’s performance at the Super Bowl 50 half-time, the stage resembled a scene from a psychedelic hippy setting in India, with marigold garlands and desi pop art motifs, usually found etched on trucks in the country.Even the name ‘Coldplay’ was painted boldly in Devanagari script on the musical instruments.
Some saw it as a marketing stunt by the Chris Martin-led band to promote its latest track ‘Hymn for the Weekend’ featuring pop star Beyoncé, the music video of which was shot in the dusty bylanes of Mumbai. In the video, while Martin and his band mates walk through a mock Holi festival and ride a taxi past saffron-clad monks to watch Beyoncé as a sultry Bollywood star at a local theatre, B-town starlet Sonam Kapoor does a fleeting three-second cameo.
"It’s a world of smart phones and viral videos. What better way to promote your album than during a performance at one of the biggest sporting events in US, watched not only by Americans but millions of others too across the globe," said Bengaluru-based brand expert Harish Bijoor "And we by our very nature are ‘patriotic’. Whether it’s an American astronaut of Indian-origin or a rock band using Devanagari script on a drum, we jump at every opportunity to take credit." The Super Bowl performance lighted up Twitter and Facebook in the country with some taking offence at showcasing India as land of sadhus and snake charmers. However, others tweeted their pleasure at finding their country in a Coldplay video. Subsequently, ‘Hymn for the weekend’, taken from Coldplay’s new album, A Head full of Dreams, has climbed to the number two spot on Apple’s iTunes Chart in India. Within a week, it has garnered over 3.5 crore views on Youtube.
"You can say that the conversation that is happening here about Coldplay’s performance at the Super Bowl is just a trickledown effect of a much larger conversation happening in the US and the Europe. I don’t think it was targeted solely at Indians," said Vijay Nair, CEO of Only Much Louder (OML) and the man behind one of India’s largest music festivals, the Bacardi NH7 Weekender.
However, Hollywood directors are increasingly using Indian characters and cities in their movies as the country is a huge market for American flicks. For instance, Tom Cruise starrer Mission Impossible 4 showcased Mumbai and had Bollywood star Anil Kapoor playing the bad guy. Important scenes in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises was shot at Mehrangarh Fort in Jodhpur while Matt Damon’s spy flick Bourne Supremacy had Goa in its opening sequence.
The Super Bowl is largely seen as a fantastic vehicle by advertisers. Brands can spend around $4 million for a 30-second ad. "We officially partner with Super Bowl as a logistics partner. For instance, this time we ran a ‘Don’t drink and drive campaign’ and provided free rides to first-time Uber users. We did whacky product and brand activations around the event. It doesn’t get bigger than the Super Bowl in the US," said Saad Ahmed, business development lead at Uber India.