Bigger, better and brighter is the promise for IPL Season 11.

In a first, in a decade of the Indian Premier League, the Board of Cricket Control of India and newly anointed broadcaster Star India have launched a joint campaign for the upcoming 2018 tournament.

Bigger, better and brighter is the promise for IPL Season 11, but beneath the shiny packaging, everything about the tournament is reassuringly familiar.

Naturally so, believe advertising veterans. Why would the broadcaster or the Board want to fix something that is not broken?

 The new campaign like many of the past years plays on the drama and the razzmatazz that the tournament has come to be associated with.

For its anthem it dips into an



old Bollywood patriotic favourite and the storyline sticks to a familiar pitch where the tournament is seen as the favourite hunting ground of the underdog.

The agency says the campaign that will play across digital, print and television is woven around the theme that this is where the best go up against the best. The idea this year, as it has been in the past several years too, seems to be to reinforce the tournament as a platform where heartening stories of uncapped unknown talent finding recognition, fame and wealth play out on the field and, of course, a screen near you.

There also seems to be an emphasis on the drama around the game, where every match is more than just a clash of the willow and seam.