Ravi Shastri Danced. CRED Won

There was a time when Ravi Shastri meant business. Crisp commentary. No-nonsense analysis. Always the coach, never the clown. And then, one day, he danced. Not metaphorically. He actually danced. In public. On camera. With a smile that said, “You didn’t see this coming, did you?”

What looked like a breakdown turned into a breakthrough.

CRED, once again, flipped the rulebook.

The campaign was titled “Play it Different”, and it did exactly that. It reintroduced Ravi Shastri to the Indian audience—not as the cricket veteran with a booming baritone, but as the unpredictable star of a bizarrely brilliant advertisement.

No cricket pitch. No mic. No seriousness. Instead, Shastri was seen in neon, grooving to beats, lounging with sunglasses, and playing a version of himself that nobody expected. including himself.

This was more than a cameo. It was a complete reinvention.

CRED has long used irony and satire to build its brand. From Anil Kapoor to Rahul Dravid (“Indiranagar ka gunda”), its casting choices have always hinged on contrast. Shastri was the next chapter—unexpected, unmissable, unforgettable.

Here’s what the campaign taught us:

• Familiarity breeds creativity. Audiences knew Ravi Shastri too well. That’s exactly why the twist worked.
  
  
• Surprise is strategy. The ad went beyond entertainment; it created disruption. It sparked conversations across cricket fans, ad geeks, and meme pages alike.
  
  
• Personality beats performance. No hard sell. No product demo. Just storytelling that made people feel something, and Google “What is CRED?” if they didn’t already know.
  
  

CRED sold curiosity, not credit. And in the attention economy, that proves priceless.

Ravi Shastri danced. The nation gasped. And CRED, once again, proved that when you play it differently, you do not just make ads. You make moments.

The best campaigns don’t speak to the audience. They interrupt them. And for a few unforgettable seconds, this one did just that.